let's talk about Bridgerton tea, my ask is open
will byers stan first human second
Aqua Utopia｜海の底で記憶を紡ぐ
No title available
Discoholic 🪩
No title available
wallacepolsom
"I'm Dorothy Gale from Kansas"
Today's Document
#extradirty
Alisa U Zemlji Chuda
❣ Chile in a Photography ❣
PR's Tumblrdome
ellievsbear
Andulka
@theartofmadeline
Show & Tell
Cosmic Funnies
i don't do bad sauce passes
Origami Around
seen from Italy
seen from Singapore
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from Japan
seen from Brazil
seen from France
seen from Malaysia
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from Saudi Arabia
seen from Japan
seen from Finland
seen from Malaysia
seen from Spain
seen from Maldives
seen from United States
seen from Netherlands
seen from Spain
seen from United States
@raebballin
she/her, 19 years old, canadian, hooper, coach and editor. i watch pretty much every basketball league (nba, wnba, ncaa, ote, ots, unrivalled). i have a lot of favourite players but my top few are shai, kyrie, jdub, paige buckets, tre mann, azzi fudd, aja, carter bryant, juju, russ and hali .
something about him tonight was just sooooooo🤭
NO WORDS BRO
Angel Reese going to Atlanta? Bet!
Flexing the shoes w/ Nick Gallo
god forbid the mvp has an off game
it’s only been a couple hours and i’m already seeing people claim that this game somehow discredits shai’s mvp case because the team didn’t “need” him to win it. essentially trying to say that the thunder would still be a great team without him and therefore he’s not valuable to them in the same way that someone like cade is to detroit or luka is to LA.
this is the key thing most casuals are missing are here: when it comes to impacting winning on an unbelievably consistent basis shai gilgeous alexander is the ONLY name worth mentioning in this conversation. it’s not just about stats or winning games once in a while. it’s about chasing the highest realm of success and in okc that entire system is built around him and for him.
people often conflate impact with volume as if half the mvp case isn’t an eye test. you actually have to bear witness to the greatness to know it exists. and although this entire season, with all the injuries that the thunder have had to endure, should be reason enough to give him the mvp, people don’t know this is even happening because they don’t watch the games. take a serious look at who he has around him every night. yes chet’s an all star, yes ajay’s killing it, ihart and jwill are having big nights. but that is not enough to get where they have. i’ve watched an absurd amount of thunder basketball this season, and i come to the same conclusion every single night; that shai is the best player in the world. i’m saying this with complete confidence, the thunder are a play in team at best without shai and THATS what makes him the mvp.
side note: people like to bring up the fact that the thunder have won a few games without shai as if that’s some HUGE indicator of their hypothetical success but that’s literally such a stupid argument. the brooklyn nets beat the spurs this season so welcome to the modern nba. i love the thunder this is no disrespect to the rest of this incredible team but they know their roles, they play them well, they step up when they need to and they know shai is the mvp.
one last thing: have we all suddenly forgotten how good jalen williams was last year?? people are so caught up in trying accuse shai of being a fraud that they don’t even realize he is working with scraps every night (again no shade i appreciate these guys so much for holding it down. like genuinely i want to stress that fact). this is an entirely different system than the one that found success last year so mark has been forced improvise. that lack of chemistry within the lineups is a huge factor that contributes to shai’s heightened load this season.
shopping together again.. awesome
"chet you don't have to poke it from behind, you can jump up and tap it" & i've always said this
who’s up for the nico is fired party
cheddar is cheesing
my older sister who knows nothing about basketball besides what i tell her, said shai reminds her of a little kid😭
Man I need those shai 001s
he was coach of the year for a reason.
okay let’s address the elephant in the room first: the thunder were shooting some abysmal three point shots in the first half and it was borderline painful to watch. although it was a rough start, i think it was simply because they weren’t producing the type of good looks that they have been over the course of the season so far. the shots weren’t falling on top of that for most of the first half so yes their offence looked incredibly weak.
i also think the grizzlies were VERY aggressive on both sides of the floor which made me notice 2 main things: first is that the thunder were timid when it came to hard drives. i think they are aware of the grizzlies play style and were trying to force the offence outside of the paint to avoid unnecessary contact. the thunder know how to play physical basketball, they did it all throughout the playoffs, but when the team is already short handed they have to adapt to maintain their depth. they were also throwing weak passes which led to some unnecessary pressure on fast breaks and such. but of course they eventually found their way inside like they always do.
the second thing i noticed is that the thunders game plan going into this game was to run a man-to-man defence that was quite frankly very shaky. then mark eventually realized that the grizzlies were not using many pick and rolls to get good looks, it was almost always ball movement and off ball rotation. this gets incredibly hard and exhausting to guard in a man-to-man especially when they’re shooting the three so well. so when the thunder came out in a (beautifully executed) zone defence in the third quarter they were able to shift, switch and rotate sooooo much better.
again the grizzlies were hacking all game so chet was also not as aggressive as he usually is. he played incredibly well especially down the stretch but i just feel like he hasn’t been himself lately with all the back issues. of course shai had his epic comeback run to finish with an impressive 35/7/6 and 2 steals. but one thing i’ve started to notice about shai is that he needs to get going early in order for this team to be successful. this game was so hard for the thunder because he was highly pressured and his shot wasn’t falling (shout out to the grizzlies but specifically the rook cedric coward for putting shai to work i respect it) he also struggled a bit on the defensive end because of all the ball movement like it seriously gets tiring to iso and then get back and guard your man over and over (that’s also why i think he was chucking up threes cause he wanted to preserve some energy). most high scoring guards can’t play defence for shit but shai will always hustle on defence. at the end of the day he makes winning plays when it matters most and once he’s got some momentum he’s basically impossible to stop. ihart is also continuing to impress me more and more everyday he’s honestly vital to this team and the impact he has on every game is so huge. ajay mitchell with ANOTHER start and another insanely productive night. this boy is just different. he makes plays that literally no one else can and that’s what’s so great about him.
i love this thunder teams ability to execute game plans and simply be effective in their respective roles. another great game
