Oklahoma City Thunder topped the regular season

NBA

After three weeks of struggle in the NBA regular season, which was in jeopardy for a long time due to the lockout, the Oklahoma City Thunder are leading the standings. Yesterday, Scott Brooks' team met the Celtics in Boston and won their seventh victory in a row - with a score of 97:88. This success allowed the Thunder to get ahead of the Eastern Conference leader Chicago Bulls, who, in the absence of last season's best player Derrick Rose, failed to cope with the Memphis Grizzlies away.

The National Basketball Association players' strike, which almost disrupted the regular season, confused the cards for many potential league favorites. The season, which opened a month late, got off to a bad start with the current NBA champion Dallas Mavericks, who significantly rebuilt their roster in the offseason. Due to a long period of downtime, the Los Angeles Lakers and Boston Celtics cannot find their game. And some teams have already felt the costs of a significant tightening of the game schedule, as a result of which basketball players have to hold four to five meetings a week. The “fruits” of the oversaturated calendar were numerous injuries. The Miami Heat have already lost two of their superstars, LeBron James and Dwyane Wade, to injuries. The best player of the previous season, Derrick Rose from the Chicago Bulls, did not escape a similar fate.

The Oklahoma City Thunder club, which continues to progress along with its 23-year-old leaders Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook, suffered the lockout better than its competitors. Thus, in the 2008/09 season, Thunder was only 13th in the West at the end of the regular season, a year later it made it to the playoffs, and in the last NBA championship it already played in the semifinal series. In the current championship, Scott Brooks' team is one of the main title contenders.

Yesterday, Oklahoma City basketball players arrived in Boston for a game with the local Celtics, having a streak of six victories in a row behind them (in total, before the visit to TD Garden, they won 11 of 13 matches). Boston, which recently became the NBA champion and retained its fighting squad from 2008, is, on the contrary, in crisis - Doc Rivers' team has lost its last four meetings. “We realized that they (the Bostonians—Kommersant) would put pressure, crush and break our game in their forceful manner. But we passed this test,” Oklahoma City head coach Scott Brooks noted after the match.

The guests started off without a hitch. Durant and Westbrook each scored ten points in the first period, giving the Thunder an eight-point lead, 25-17. The hosts were unable to seize the initiative. Brooks' team, acting in an organized manner on defense, deprived the Celtics of one of their main trump cards - long-range shots, and one of the best snipers in the league, Ray Allen, threatened the opponent's basket from behind the arc only twice. Due to the intense pressure, playmaker Rajon Rondo's passes under the shield were ineffective. And tall Celtics players Kevin Garnett and Jermaine O'Neill got lost in a tough fight with Serge Ibaka and Kendrick Perkins, who moved to Oklahoma City from Boston last season.

Only Paul Pierce caused problems for the guests. In the middle of the third period, with a shot from under the backboard, he equalized the score - 57:57. And in the final quarter, when Thunder again went into the lead, the forward reduced his club’s gap to two points with a hit from afar - 76:78. But the efforts of Pierce, who scored 24 points, were not enough. Kevin Durant finished the game with 28 points. He surpassed Paul Pierce and Russell Westbrook, who brought his personal score to 26 points with two accurate three-pointers at the end of the game.

Thus, the Boston club lost the fifth match in a row - with a score of 88:97. This hasn't happened to Rivers' team since 2007. The loss dropped the Celtics to tenth place in the Eastern Conference. But the 12th victory in the championship for the Oklahomans allowed the Thunder to get ahead of the Chicago Bulls and lead the league standings.

The Bulls also played an away game yesterday against the Memphis Grizzlies. The leader of the Chicagoans, Derrick Rose, sat on the bench for the entire match due to a sprained leg and watched helplessly as his team lost in all respects to the middle team from the West. Rose was replaced in Chicago's starting five by John Lucas and C.J. Watson. But none of these basketball players were able to neutralize the hosts' manager Mike Conley. Thanks to the efforts of the Grizzlies defender, they immediately organized a 6:0 lead - Conley himself scored two points, he also assisted Morris Speights, and Rudy Gay also scored. And after the Bulls’ defenders, the forwards and centers began to fail. Speights, Gay and Marc Gasol, given complete freedom in the three-second zone, completed their attacks with slam dunks over and over again. As a result, Memphis already had a 20-point head start by the big break - 58:38. Chicago lost 86:102, suffering its third defeat in 15 championship matches played.

Sergey Melnik

Tournament table

Eastern Conference

IVP%

Atlantic Division
1.Philadelphia	13	10	3	76.9
2. New York	13	6	7	46.2
3. Boston	12	4	8	33.3
4.Toronto	14	4	10	28.6
5. New Jersey	14	3	eleven	21.4
Central Division
1. Chicago	15	12	3	80.0
2. Indiana	12	9	3	75.0
3. Cleveland	12	6	6	50.0
4. Milwaukee	12	4	8	33.3
5.Detroit	13	3	10	23.1
Southeast Division
1. Orlando	12	9	3	75.0
2. Atlanta	14	10	4	71.4
3.Miami	12	8	4	66.7
4. Charlotte	14	3	eleven	21.4
5.Washington	13	1	12	7.7

Western Conference

IVP

Northwestern Division
1.Oklahoma City	14	12	2	85.7
2. Utah	12	8	4	66.7
3. Portland	13	8	5	61.5
4. Denver	13	8	5	61.5
5. Minnesota	13	5	8	38.5
Pacific Division
1. LA Clippers	10	7	3	70.0
2. LA Lakers	14	10	5	66.7
3.Phoenix	12	4	8	33.3
4.Golden State	12	4	8	33.3
5. Sacramento	14	4	10	28.6
Southwestern Division
1. San Antonio	13	9	4	69.2
2.Dallas	14	8	6	57.1
3.Memphis	12	6	6	50.0
4. Houston	13	6	7	46.2
5. New Orleans	13	3	10	23.1

Newspaper "Kommersant Ukraine" No. 3 dated January 18, 2012, p. 8

Authors:

Sergey Melnik

Themes:

Hockey

Thundered throughout the league