Late Night Shenanigans

What a crazy game last night betwixt our beloved Thunder and the Warriors. For once fortuna smiled on OKC and Jeff Green's game winner at the buzzer made it worth staying up to see the 122-121 victory.

It seems to me these two teams bring out the best in each other.

For example a 72-68 halftime score. You'd think that no Defense was being played by either team. But it was really solid basketball by both teams. Both shot over 50% from the floor and both were 15/15 from the free throw line. For the game the team's shot a combined 68-73 from the foul line. The Thunder shot 62% from 3-point range and the Warriors shot over 50% from the floor for the game.

What I really liked about this game, other than winning and other than Jeff Green's beating the buzzer to do it, was something I noticed from Kyle Weaver, Jeff Collison and Desmond Mason.

Collison and Mason, each on separate occasions, took their teammate(s) aside and did a little coaching. Collison showed Weaver something about posting up on D. Mason pulled the entire on-floor lineup aside coming out of a timeout with less than a minute left in the game.

On occasion I've seen Chucky Atkins do this to Russell Westbrook and I've seen Damien Wilkins do it as well.

To me, it's a clear sign that the team has great chemistry and are taking ownership and responsibility for improving and winning. Not only is it encouraging to see but it's fun to watch as well.

Kyle Weaver jumped out to me because he is becoming "that guy you love to have on your team but hate to play against". He's a pest. He gets up in your face, he harasses every pass and lives in your back pocket. He clearly got under the skin of Corey Maggette.

Every good team needs a pest. They can take their opponent out of their games, distract them, get them to commit silly fouls and flat out bug the snot out of people. Two people that immediately come to mind that play this role on other team's would be Bruce Bowen of the San Antonio Spurs and Chris Paul of the Hornets. I'm in no way saying Weaver is an equal to the complete games these two posess. But, as Weaver's confidence builds, you can see him playing an important role off the bench.