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You said you trusted the team that hadn't been there more and I'm like I don't know, man. I gotta go thunder home court game. I just I presumed that the champs on their home floor in game seven it would be too a too tall a hill to climb and it was not. The main factor was the lack of trust in the other AllNBA guy and that's Chad. And what do we do there? First off, this is what bothered me so much is I mentioned the body language and I get it. we're not supposed to read. That's not the end all. But at some point when you've had a prior history and Winhorse has all the stories um which is great going back to Chad meeting and his mom and not being uh I would say authentic. Um but at some point you're on that top 15 list because
of the type of player you are, right? You could shoot. you're as long as anybody in the league except but most of all your defense and then you just didn't guard the guy and so you know we talk about Shay after the fact and I think about Chad after the fact you didn't even show you didn't go to all your facets you know you didn't put your shoulder down and make them draw a charge one time you didn't shoot the ball uh you know you didn't guard him defensively. You left you didn't give it your best effort and that's what I just saw it. I didn't think it was going to come out in the series and now it's a reality check and it's going to be a long process until he gets back on the court and no one's
going to say anything until he does well against that team and that player. And that's a big that would be the biggest roadblock mentally is the fact that there's that guy. Yeah. and that team and they're in your way and they're going to be in your way. And so if it's a mental hurdle, then you got to figure out how to at least try to get over that hurdle. There's and this is the thing that you can get into the in a wormhole of that a clip of video, right? But even Thunder fans were a just a gasast at the fact that after Wemmenyama gets his fifth foul on a Hardenstein dunk that he's he's got five.
Mhm. And Chad's got him on the baseline and go as hard as you can and try to draw that six and instead he just falls down and loses the ball again. Didn't take a shot the last 31 minutes he played. He took two shots. an AllNBA player, four points, took two shots, and just looked like he wanted to be anywhere else except where he was and ends up be like having to get put taken out of the game. So, you're right about the body language piece, and it's an even bigger mistake to try to put yourself in somebody's head and say what they were thinking, how they were feeling. No one can know but him. But he needs to address whatever it was he thought and whatever it was he felt and take a big giant
magnifying glass at those 48 minutes and try to figure out what that was and how he can get beyond that cuz that's that's not an AllNBA player. And on the other side, you saw a guy purely motivated them MVP ceremony in game one. what he in what he did in game one the whole road you see and I can't not think about back remember when Michael Jordan people would put try and put other players in his tier like I was a Dominique fan when he played Dominique it was on you know there was a there was a Cavs Bulls thing you know Ron Harper is going to be a Jordan stopper no that's not they go to the NBA finals he was Dude, they go to the finals against Portland, right? Clyde Draxler.
No. And it was personal and that's what and all these conversations for the youngsters that didn't get a chance. That's why he was MJ. There wasn't a challenge that he was going to back down from. But the way he went about it, I talked last week about my nephew how you do things and that was Jordan. how he did it and when Myama how he went about things like I said I didn't agree with it all I hated that he didn't talk to the media and bailed out and in that whole series he was a different person after wins than he was losses but game seven came and you know the cast around him he made one shot in the fourth quarter right because that's that's why I wanted to make a point of the of Kell and
Harper and Champenni one shot But afterward, you see the emotion. Uh Anthony Slater tweeted out a whole video. He just followed him as the clock's expiring and you just see the emotion and you saw what But if that's what it takes to get you to a place where you're going to succeed, you know, going back to Chad, it I just had a problem because there was no attack. The way he went about it, how he did it, it just was like you're leaving opportunities out there. You mentioned the shots, not taking one in the last 31 minutes. That's what's got to drive him. If it was me, it would drive me nuts cuz you didn't use a hard foul.
You didn't go at him. You didn't attack. You didn't try and guard him. How you went about it was just so bothering to me because there is so much capability in that player. Got to go out swinging and he didn't. and got to try to find the that level of anger and push that when Banyama spoke to when you talked to the NBC uh postgame and saying I basically just that I leaned into the anger. I leaned into the jealousy like all of it was fuel. Um and it's it's wild because this feels like a finish line but it isn't. It's just the beginning. It's like the origin story of the beginning of a rivalry. I said this on Sports Center. Rivalries don't happen until you take something from someone that matters to them.
That's what rivalries are. Did you beat them in a game that mattered to them? Not a regular season game that mattered to you but not them. Not the same. Not a regular season where you could point to that and say, "Well, we beat him in the regular season." And when did he's like, "And we beat him and everyone played." Because he wanted to make that clear. And the Thunder could just roll their eyes and go, "Okay, cool. We'll see you when it matters." Well, you did and they're still playing. That's where rivalries are truly born out of that. And so the fact that Chad was as uh invisible as he was, you're exactly right. You got to
find that. That's everyone's going to have some version of what you know, how do you spend the summer? Only he knows. What kind of work do you put in? Only he knows. How did you feel? How much did it push you? And the scariest thing would be you might feel a certain way, but that dude's still going to be there. I don't know if when you were coming up cuz you were the guy, but there was some school or some guy out there that you knew was out there and you had to figure out how to get past that person. Only this is happening on the biggest stage the sport has. And no, the Thunder didn't have everybody. That's a thing.
Yeah. And JDub talked about would it have been different? Well, I don't know. Maybe. But unfortunately that is what this postseason is and what last one was. You don't think Pacer fans wonder man Hallebertton was out of his mind that first quarter making threes. Maybe the Pacers would have been what the Spurs just were. Maybe they would have been a team celebrating on your floor if Hallebertton didn't get injured. We'll never know. This isn't as obvious, but if Tatum doesn't sit for game seven at home against Philadelphia, maybe the Knicks have to play Boston in the series ahead of the conference finals. He didn't. We'll never know. The Thunder didn't have to
play the Luca and the Lakers. Now, they beat the absolute brakes off him when they had Luca. The last time we saw Luca, he was on the floor in OKC there. Got beat by like 50. So, I don't know if it would have mattered or not, but I'm sure Lakers fans would have liked to have found the answer out. So, the Thunder benefited some from injuries. You clearly were penalized by the absence of Williams and Mitchell. Um, but that's just what this sport is. It's a bit of a war of attrition.
