I didnt know which thread to post this in so I decided to make a new thread.
Currently in the west standings, it shows that San Antonio has and "x" by their name meaning they clinched a playoff berth, and Oklahoma City with a "y" by their name, I was wondering why dont we have an "X", does that mean we still are capable of NOT making the playoffs? That has always been confusing to me.

Y might be because we clinched the NW conference

Y might be because we clinched the NW conference

We've clinched our division. San Antonio has clinched a playoff spot but Dallas is still alive for the division title. Not likely to happen though.

We've clinched our division. San Antonio has clinched a playoff spot but Dallas is still alive for the division title. Not likely to happen though.

Guess its too late for me to edit since you already quoted me :ohno:

Basically the Thunder are not in good position right now.

Granted, they're in better position than ever. But our goal is nothing short of the NBA Finals, and granted, #2 or #3 are still great seeds to have..it just means we may have to play 4 games in San Antonio in order to get where we want.

Of course remember that even if the Spurs finish first, meeting them in the playoffs isn't a given. They lost in the first round last year.

Neither is us making it beyond the first round a given, however.

I know the Thunder will give it their best. Maybe we could even question whether the Spurs gave it their best last year, but no doubt, they have a lot more experience in getting to the Finals than we do.

Maybe you could also argue that throughout this season, we've been a marquee game everywhere we go, and gotten every team's best. Perhaps the Spurs can't say the same until lately, as they have sort of made this insurgency run under the radar after the all-star break (until lately).

z is the best position, clinched conference. y is second best, clinched division. x is third best, clinched playoff birth. The higher up you clinch, you already assume lower clinches.

So, with OKC clinching y - it means they also already had clinched x (but it would be stupid to list y and x). I think OKC clinched X (playoff birth) when we won 40 games. OKC clinched Division due to the distance between OKC and 2nd place (and the fact there is no way they could catch even if OKC lost all the rest of the games). To clinch z, okc needs to win 3 more games than SA before OKC's reg season is over since SA will still have 2 more games and a tie goes to SA.

Also, OKC is back to first in the west and second overall, with 1 game (2 wins) ahead of SA. The problem with this is, OKC's lacadazical sp? play and San Antonio has two more games to play than OKC. So it may be a long time before OKC clinches z, if at all, unless OKC can win 2 and SA lose 2 more. It is sort of funny, in that the exact same situation exists in the Eastern Conference, although Chi has a bigger lead on Miami than OKC has on SA.

I want OKC to clinch overall best record and am so upset with the on and off play as of late. Second place isn't good enough for me, when we have the most talented team in the NBA and the losses are due to OKC's own careless mistakes (ie, teams dont really beat OKC, OKC beats ourself). Beat the S%%% out of Milwaukee then lose in the last minute to the Clippers - it is this which makes me sick.

Still, very excited about OKC and the Thunder, and I can't wait to come down to a playoff game or two :D.

The Thunder have been really inconsistent as of late, its like you don't know what Thunder team will show up for a game. One game they will play great, then the next game they will play like crap. I have also noticed we have struggled against playoff bound teams in our conference like the Clippers, Spurs, Grizzlies, and Rockets. If they don't get their head out of their butt real quick, our playoff run this year will be cut short.

Basically the Thunder are not in good position right now.

Granted, they're in better position than ever. But our goal is nothing short of the NBA Finals, and granted, #2 or #3 are still great seeds to have..it just means we may have to play 4 games in San Antonio in order to get where we want.

there is almost no chance we fall below the #2 seed we only need 2 wins (or a couple of laker loses) to clinch at least the 2 seed


and begin the #2 doesn't mean we HAVE to play 4 games in San antonio ... it would only mean a possible game 7 would be in San Antonio


we are still 1st in the west .. and the spurs have a hard schedule to finish the season as well ..

Guess its too late for me to edit since you already quoted me :ohno:

Sorry! On my iPhone late and didn't check which one I grabbed.

Sorry! On my iPhone late and didn't check which one I grabbed.

Sorry that came across wrong...I meant it was too late for me to fix my mistake and act like I knew what the hell I was talking about lol

Sorry that came across wrong...I meant it was too late for me to fix my mistake and act like I knew what the hell I was talking about lol

That's how I took it... no worries on my end.

The Thunder have been really inconsistent as of late, its like you don't know what Thunder team will show up for a game. One game they will play great, then the next game they will play like crap. I have also noticed we have struggled against playoff bound teams in our conference like the Clippers, Spurs, Grizzlies, and Rockets. If they don't get their head out of their butt real quick, our playoff run this year will be cut short.

The problem this year against playoff teams that we have struggled against here late in the season is, one The Thunder come out playing flat and get themselves in a big hole but crawl themselves out of it in the 4th quarter where the have come up short in recent games. Or, They play fairly well for 3 quarters, then in the 4th, whether it be complacency, not passing the ball to break down the defense, or taking a lot of low percentage 3's, the lose a good lead and end up coming up short. I still think they will make it to the WCF though.

Probably the worst game I have seen the Thunder play all season. Should we be worried? No. Why? Because at worst, we will finish 2nd in the West, and end up playing Phoenix/Houston in the 1st round. We could lose the rest our games and still end up with 2nd seed in the West. We have a 5 game lead in 2nd place now against the Lakers, and we have the tie breaker by beating them twice already this year. The Thunder losing the last 5 games is highly unlikely anyways. Moreover, if we win out, we could still end up with 1st seed in the West, but we have to hope Lakers beat Spurs tonight and on Friday. However, actually I think would rather like it if end up with 2nd seed, because we could get Phoenix in he 1st round and winner of Lakers/Denver in 2nd round. Trust me when I say this, we want to play either Lakers/Denver rather than Clipper/Grizzlies in the 2nd round. So I think we are in good shape. There are better match ups for the Thunder finishing 2nd in the West, rather than 1st.

I think it all hinges on Westbrook and recently he's been playing too many minutes and seems a little worn down. Hits the floor a whole bunch which eventually will take a toll.
I'd like to see a little more Reggie Jackson, who has energy to burn, and from what I've seen can be as effective as Fisher. Cut Russell's and Fish's minutes in these few games and we'll still win them.

I think we should start worrying because they proved they cant win when playing the Clippers in a MUST WIN game on the road. Tonight the Spurs play the Lakers and its going to be on TNT so expect all the negativity from Charles Barkley and Shaq. Thunder had the number one seed in the west for the entire 14-16 week season and now they lose it in the final week is just very heartbreaking and frustrating on a fan. :(

I think we should start worrying because they proved they cant win when playing the Clippers in a MUST WIN game on the road. Tonight the Spurs play the Lakers and its going to be on TNT so expect all the negativity from Charles Barkley and Shaq. Thunder had the number one seed in the west for the entire 14-16 week season and now they lose it in the final week is just very heartbreaking and frustrating on a fan. :(

so if you think that was a "must win game" .. .then you think all the rest are "must win games" ..... so were the games last week must win? or the week before??

why are the thunder not 60-0??

Losing to the Clippers is not our biggest worries...It seems that teams are watching film, and learning how to play good defense against us. The Clippers have exposed us. They have learned how to stop the cornerstone to our offense, which is Harden. With teams learning how to stop Harden will cause Brooks to develop on new offensive scheme. Let's hope that is what they are working on, which maybe be an excuse to recent losses.

The Thunder are better off with the 2nd seed in the West, we would end up playing either Lakers/Nuggets in 2nd round, rather than Clippers/Grizzlies. We want to play the Lakers/Nuggets in the 2nd round, trust me!

so if you think that was a "must win game" .. .then you think all the rest are "must win games" ..... so were the games last week must win? or the week before??

why are the thunder not 60-0??

To me it was a MUST WIN game because we are likely to meeting the Clippers in the playoffs, and Thunder NEEDs that 1 seed. every playoff series they lost was when they didnt have home court advantage.

I don't understand why people get all worked up about having the 1 seed, and home court advantage. If you don't know by now that home court advantage doesn't matter in the playoffs, then you are lost. Look what happen to Spurs last season, they were 1st seed, and got beat out by an 8th seed Grizzlies. Good teams can win on the road as well as at home. All, the Spurs, Grizzlies, Rockets, and Clippers have beat us at home this year! What people don't understand is if the Thunder lose just 1 of the first two home games in a playoff series where they had home court advantage, then the home court advantage goes out the window!

I don't understand why people get all worked up about having the 1 seed, and home court advantage. If you don't know by now that home court advantage doesn't matter in the playoffs, then you are lost. Look what happen to Spurs last season, they were 1st seed, and got beat out by an 8th seed Grizzlies. Good teams can win on the road as well as at home. All, the Spurs, Grizzlies, Rockets, and Clippers have beat us at home this year! What people don't understand is if the Thunder lose just 1 of the first two home games in a playoff series where they had home court advantage, then the home court advantage goes out the window!

I know that! But this is Oklahoma City we are talking about, a team who is very inconsistent when playing road playoff games. Take away our fast break points then we will struggle offensivley. Last year around this time the Spurs were the number one seed who showed signs of struggling about 2-3 weeks before playoffs. Thunder seems to be doing just that right now.

I remember what happened to the Spurs in the playoffs last year, too. Perhaps this doesn't bode well for a long playoff run. Sometimes disappointment brings maturity. This team has gotten really good, really fast. They're young to make a deep playoff run and we may be ripe for major disappointment, which might bring more focus next year. The sad thing is, we've had a really injury free year. If we screw this year up, there's no guarantee we'll have a similarly injury free year next year. Championship banners have eluded some very good teams and it's very premature to be planning where to place them or where to hold a victory parade.

Statistically speaking - having home court advantage during the playoffs is huge

http://www.nba.com/2009/news/features/john_schuhmann/04/17/homecourt20090417/


Home Team, 1998-99 through 2007-08
Ind. Games W L Pct.
Reg. Season 7021 4569 .606
Postseason 513 278 .649
Game 7* 26 10 .722

*Includes deciding Game 5s in the first round through 2002

The above numbers are for individual games. But what about the series as a whole?

Team w/ home-court advantage, 1999-2008
Series W L Pct.

First round 65 15 .813
Conf. semis 32 8 .800
Conf. finals 10 10 .500
The Finals 8 2 .800
Total 115 35 .767


The team with home-court advantage wins more than three out of every four series in the postseason.

I remember what happened to the Spurs in the playoffs last year, too. Perhaps this doesn't bode well for a long playoff run. Sometimes disappointment brings maturity. This team has gotten really good, really fast. They're young to make a deep playoff run and we may be ripe for major disappointment, which might bring more focus next year. The sad thing is, we've had a really injury free year. If we screw this year up, there's no guarantee we'll have a similarly injury free year next year. Championship banners have eluded some very good teams and it's very premature to be planning where to place them or where to hold a victory parade.

I think the Thunder will be like another Dallas Mavericks, who made it to the western conference semifinals and finals year in and year out, to only get beat, and took them forever to win a championship.

Only 3 SG's in the league have a higher PER than Harden. Kobe Bryant, Dewayne Wade, and Manu Ginobili...what great company to be in...wow...

The Thunder doesn't seem to have the fight they had when they faced Los Angeles, Miami and Chicago. This team will perform to its level of competition. Look for the Thunder to go far if they don't get overconfident and torpedoed in the first round.

Neat article from the Las Vegas Sun (http://www.lasvegassun.com/blogs/talking-points/2012/apr/17/vegas-look-nba/?hpbl) on what the oddsmakers think of the championship contenders...


The Thunder spent long stretches of this season looking like the most complete team, going 33-28 against the spread in the process. At 3-to-1, Oklahoma City has seen its future odds to drop more than any other team. Sports books opened the Thunder at 7-to-1 before the season.

With Chicago's loss tonight to Miami the top four teams overall are within one game of each other. It may end up exactly the way it is right now but it also makes for an interesting last few games.

I don't understand why Scott Brooks states that he is not concerned, and they just have to "continue to get better". He always says he doesn't care about the standings or who we play in the playoffs? What is he thinking?

The Thunder are 0-7 against playoff bound teams since April 1st.

The Thunder ended the regular season leading the league in turnovers per game.

The Turnover issue has haunted us all year, and has yet to improve.

Coach Brooks keep saying, "overall we had a great regular season".

Ok, yea we started off good, but its not how you start, but how you finish, and we finished like crap. Only beating teams that had no chance of making it to the playoffs.

We should have beat Denver last night, we had a better FG%, FT%, and 3FG%, the only thing that got us beat was the 18 turnovers, Denver made 24 points off 18 turnovers.

With that being said, I wouldn't be surprised if we got knocked off in the 1st round this year!

I don't understand why Scott Brooks states that he is not concerned, and they just have to "continue to get better". He always says he doesn't care about the standings or who we play in the playoffs? What is he thinking?

The Thunder are 0-7 against playoff bound teams since April 1st.

The Thunder ended the regular season leading the league in turnovers per game.

The Turnover issue has haunted us all year, and has yet to improve.

Coach Brooks keep saying, "overall we had a great regular season".

Ok, yea we started off good, but its not how you start, but how you finish, and we finished like crap. Only beating teams that had no chance of making it to the playoffs.

We should have beat Denver last night, we had a better FG%, FT%, and 3FG%, the only thing that got us beat was the 18 turnovers, Denver made 24 points off 18 turnovers.

With that being said, I wouldn't be surprised if we got knocked off in the 1st round this year!

negative much ...what do you want him to say ... we suck and i expect to lose??? ..

we also have the second most efficient offense in the NBA ....

We might get knocked out, true. But,we might also turn on the kind of basketball we've played earlier this year against playoff teams. Definitely our biggest worry should be the Spurs, as they beat us twice to our one win over them. But again, this is a young team and sometimes they can get fired up for things like playoffs and bring a different game. This was a grueling season. We'll see how they respond to the change in tempo and emotion.

Out of 16 playoff teams, only Chicago and San Antonio has home court on us. Not bad.

Out of 16 playoff teams, only Chicago and San Antonio has home court on us. Not bad.

with the way the thunder play, i actually think that hurts us in a NBA final versus the Heat.... with the finals being in the 2-3-2 format, i wanted miami to have home field, we go into miami and win 1 out of the two (in my opinion we beat them game 1 because we catch them off guard), then we have a chance to try and sweep them at OKC to end the series in 5... with us having the home field, i think it easily goes to 6 or 7 games...

with the way the thunder play, i actually think that hurts us in a NBA final versus the Heat.... with the finals being in the 2-3-2 format, i wanted miami to have home field, we go into miami and win 1 out of the two (in my opinion we beat them game 1 because we catch them off guard), then we have a chance to try and sweep them at OKC to end the series in 5... with us having the home field, i think it easily goes to 6 or 7 games...

First things first: We need to actually get to and win the western conference title game.

First things first: We need to actually get to and win the western conference title game.

well true... i was just trying to make a statement that i'm not always sure that home field advantage is really that much of an advantage in the finals with the 2-3-2 format