For some reason, the Thunder have had no particular problem scorching the Raptors this season. Last time, at the Ford Center, I figured it was due to temporary Boshlessness; but tonight in Toronto, Chris Bosh was in good form (22 points, 10 rebounds), and still the Raptors were boiled, 115-89. Since Toronto averages something like two thousand points a game, this seems hard to explain, but we’ll try.

Wednesday against the Hawks, Jay Triano reinstated Jose Calderon as the starting point guard, leaving Jarrett Jack to come off the bench, and Toronto won that one; tonight, though, Calderon was held to a mere four points, and he gave up three turnovers. Jack had only two points, but he had seven assists. Reliable Andrea Bargnani came up with 15 points, and reserve sharpshooter Marco Belinelli had 12, but the Raptors weren’t scoring in the paint, and the Thunder controlled the boards, 53-37, including 20 off the offensive glass. Toronto didn’t need that many stops — the Thunder shot an indifferent 41.6 percent — and by gum, they didn’t get them.

Kevin Durant got his 31 points in 31 minutes and change; 17 of those came from 18 free throws. Jeff Green wound up with 25; Russell Westbrook squeaked into another double-double (11 points, 10 dimes) in 26 minutes. With the reserves getting plenty of work — even Etan Thomas was unglued from the bench — we got to see Kyle Weaver draining the treys (four of five) and D. J. White clearing the boards (five rebounds, three offensive), which is always fun.

I’d argue that it’s, well, the East, and OKC is 20-7 against the East; then again, that didn’t mean a thing against the Bobcats on Wednesday.

Up next: the Pacers on Sunday afternoon, and then back home on Monday to take on the Spurs.

And who isn’t, right?

A study released this week reports that the graduation rates for women’s teams competing for the NCAA title exceed the rates for men’s teams:

There were 19 women’s teams that had a 100 percent graduation rate compared to six men’s teams. And 51 women’s teams graduated at least 70 percent of their players compared to 29 men’s teams.

Richard Lapchick, director of [The Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport at the University of Central Florida], said overall graduation rates for men and women have continued to increase at a similar pace, so the disparity is not that alarming.

And Secretary of Education Arne Duncan points out:

It doesn’t take an elite university like a Duke, Georgetown, or Notre Dame to have a high graduation rate. Ohio, Oakland, Oklahoma State, Siena, and Xavier all graduate more than 80 percent of their men’s players.

One stumbling block: the NBA, which drafts 60 players every year, maybe a dozen of them actual graduates. The Association no longer drafts 18-year-olds, and requires players from the States to be at least one year beyond high-school graduation, but the siren in charge of fame and fortune calls very loudly indeed, even though there are more than four thousand players in Division I and there are only a handful of open roster spots in the NBA.

Says Duncan:

Institute a minimum of a 40 percent graduation rate for post-season play and I predict you will see men’s basketball teams suddenly improve their academic outcomes.

He might even be right about that.

I am forced to conclude that no one, except maybe Michael Jordan, is quite used to the idea of the Charlotte Bobcats as a playoff team. The Thunder piled up a lead of 19 points in the second quarter, but the ‘Cats ran off 11 straight to finish the first half, and were up by eight with just under two minutes left; it didn’t much matter after that, because the Thunder couldn’t buy a bucket in the next minute and a half, and Charlotte suffered not at all by missing half the free throws they earned in those 90 seconds. The final was 100-92, which means that starting from the beginning of that late-second-quarter run, the ‘Cats outscored OKC to the tune of 68-41.

I did figure that Charlotte would present some defensive obstacles, and they delivered: they blocked 12 shots, five of them Kevin Durant’s. (KD got 26 points, but he had to take 26 shots to get 18 of them; not one of his treys dropped.) All the starters — Gerald Wallace was missing — contributed substantially to the offense, the Two Stephens (Jackson and Graham) dropping 20 and 19 points respectively. What’s more, Tyrus Thomas had 11 points and nine boards off the bench, and the ‘Cats made five of seven treys.

The usual Thunder suspects produced the usual numbers, with Russell Westbrook at 15 points/10 assists and Jeff Green at 17 points. Nick Collison added 15 off the bench. The Bobcats, however, demonstrated a dazzling knack for drawing fouls; they put up 32 free throws, so it perhaps didn’t matter so much that they missed eleven of them.

You never want to start a road trip with a loss, but this one wasn’t entirely unpredictable: the ‘Cats are pretty impregnable at home, and they’ve knocked off several of the Big Boys, including some the Thunder haven’t. Michael Jordan, I assume, is pleased.

The Bichon Frisé Club of America, which is holding its national specialty in Indianapolis this year, evidently believes otherwise.

And is that goaltending on #20?

The old lost-productivity shtick, right? Right:

Filling out the brackets has become a sacred ritual in almost every office in the country. A Microsoft survey last year found 58 million people will fill brackets out, many at work and on the clock. The estimated cost of the lost productivity is $1.8 billion.

This is about $31 per bracket-filler-outer. Hell, we use up that much worth of paper every day when we’re not filling out brackets.

Scarcely anyone, or so it seems, knows the best record over an 82-game NBA season. (Chicago, 1995-96, who went 72-10 and beat Seattle — remember them? — in the Finals.) But everyone can quote you the worst record: Sixers, 1972-73, 9-73, largely because the last couple of years there have been teams seemingly destined for it. In 2008-09 it was Oklahoma City, who started the season with an embarrassing 3-29 record.

And in 2009-10 it’s the allegedly-hapless New Jersey Nets, who started the season with an embarrassing 3-29 record. They are now 7-59. The 58th loss came at the hands of the Thunder, but OKC had an 11-point lead going into the fourth quarter, and the Nets lost by only two. This suggests to me that New Jersey has more hap than people think.

Over at Nets Are Scorching, they’re figuring 13-69, which would put them on par with the woeful Mavericks of ‘93-’94, and better than the even-more-woeful Mavericks of ‘92-’93, who went 11-71. The key, of course, is that tenth win, which should come against the Bulls on the 27th:

Once the Nets get to 9 wins, I think you are going to see a much looser team. You can see when this team gets close late, they really press and just can’t execute because of it. Once they hit the 9 win mark, I expect this pressing to disappear, and with the confidence of already beating the Bulls on the road, I think they take this one too.

I don’t expect ESPN to pick up this game, but I’ll be keeping an ear open, just in case.

One reason to go to a Spurs-Thunder game — most years there are four, two here and two in San Antonio — is to see how the student has learned from the master: OKC GM Sam Presti honed his skills working for Spurs head honcho R. C. Buford. (This season, the Spurs lead the series 2-1; the last game is next Monday at the Ford.)

Another reason is the slight but measurable chance of spotting this individual:

Eva Longoria Parker, who turned 35 (seriously) yesterday, is married to Spurs point guard Tony Parker. (He’s 27.) And she’s been known to show up courtside to cheer him on when she’s not working on the Left Coast. This photo, you may be sure, was not taken at an NBA game.

And inasmuch as Parker’s on the inactive list — broken right hand — I’m not looking for Eva next week.

If you’re a game and a half behind the Jazz, beating the Jazz has to be high on your to-do list. This is not necessarily the easiest thing to do: for instance, the Thunder hit 14 of 17 from the floor in the third quarter, but it increased their lead by only a single point. What’s more, putting the lean on Utah’s fearsome points-in-the-paint machine merely induced the Jazz to take outside shots; they went 11-19 from the three-point line. Rookie shooting guard Wesley Matthews got six of those treys, en route to a team high (and career high) 29 points. But Oklahoma City made it three-for-three against Utah, winning 119-111 at the Ford and closing to within half a game of fourth place in the West.

This was billed as a battle of the point guards, and both Deron Williams and Russell Westbrook acquitted themselves admirably: Williams picked up 27 points and served up 14 assists before fouling out late, and Westbrook had 30 points and 11 dimes. (Former Jazzman Eric Maynor, now backing up Westbrook, had six points and five rebounds in ten minutes; Ronnie Price, who usually works behind Williams, was out with a bruised wrist.) Other injuries bedeviled the Jazz: both Mehmet Okur and Andrei Kirilenko were forced to sit after being roughed up Friday at Milwaukee.

But what really knocked Utah’s collective hat in the creek was the Thunder offense: OKC shot a startling 60.3 percent from the floor, though treys were few and far between. (Rebounds were sparse: OKC 36, Utah 30.) All five starters hit double digits, and Kevin Durant hit twenty in the first half, finishing with 35. The Thunder were just okay at the stripe, 28 of 35, but the Jazz obligingly missed twelve out of 34.

I think it’s safe to say no one expected this team to win 41 games out of 82, let alone 41 out of 65. A finish of .500 or better is now guaranteed. On the other hand, .500 in the West doesn’t even guarantee you a playoff spot, so it helps that the next three games are against teams from the East; the Thunder is 19-6 against Eastern teams and 19-13 on the road, so let’s hope for a sweep. Besides, the Spurs will be waiting when the Thunder return home.

Whatever you may think of the New Jersey Nets, one thing seems clear to me: they couldn’t possibly be as bad as their record suggests, and given the startling level of sloppiness exhibited by the Thunder in the waning moments, I have to figure that if the game had run an extra 30 seconds, the Nets would have pulled out the win. As it is, they whittled a double-digit Oklahoma City lead down to two points, 104-102.

Something else you may not have considered: the Nets have depth. (And they’re effective in the middle: 48 points in the paint, versus 46 for the Thunder.) Four Jersey reserves came up with 53 points; Jarvis Hayes (16 points) hit two of his four treys in rapid succession during the Nets’ final push. Devin Harris, according to the box score, set the curve — 19 points, eight assists — but if you ask me, it was the Nets’ bench that kept them in it.

The Thunder led in a couple of statistical categories — shooting, 52 to 46; rebounds 47 to 36 — but ghastly lapses in the fourth quarter nearly undid the Weather Phenomenon, despite 32 from Kevin Durant (and 12 rebounds) and a season-high 27 from Jeff Green. With James Harden sidelined for a few weeks, Kyle Weaver, retrieved from Tulsa, got some minutes; he didn’t accomplish a whole lot, but at least he’s playing again.

And as the pundits will tell you, a W is a W, no matter how it looks. But the Jazz will be here Sunday, and they’re even less forgiving than the Nets.

Marion Jones won five medals at the Sydney Olympics in 2000, which was good; apparently she had a little help from her druggist, which wasn’t so good, and after false testimony to a pair of grand juries, she wound up with no medals and six months in the Hotel Graybar.

What’s a girl to do to make a living? Jones, who played college hoops at North Carolina, worked out for a WNBA team last fall, and now she’s signed with the Tulsa Shock for the 2010 season, presumably for the league minimum (around $35k a year).

The Shock’s season opens on the 15th of May at the BOk Center, against the Minnesota Lynx.

David West ran up 14 points in the first twelve minutes; he finished with 33. Nobody else could generate any offense for New Orleans, though, and the Thunder flattened the Hornets, 98-83.

Point guard Darren Collison has been pretty effective filling in for Chris Paul, and he did dish up nine assists, but he got only eight points on 3-14 shooting. In the middle, Emeka Okafor was held to two points and three rebounds, though he did block two shots. And Peja Stojakovic was conspicuous by his absence; Julian Wright started in his stead and scored ten, but the Bees missed Peja’s three-point stroke, or indeed anyone’s three-point stroke.

The Thunder wasn’t much better from beyond the arc — two of nine is no improvement over three of 14 — but they shot four percentage points better (47-43) and dominated the boards (47-38). And OKC landed five players in double figures, led as usual by Kevin Durant with 29. Russell Westbrook had another one of those almost-triple-doubles, with 17 points, eight rebounds and nine assists. And previously-missing-in-action D. J. White, just retrieved from the 66ers, rang up five points in five minutes.

So another season series concludes, and the Thunder win this one, 2-1. The homestand continues with New Jersey on Friday and Utah on Sunday, followed by three games on the road against Eastern squads.

You should not make Russell Westbrook bleed.

A couple of minutes into the second half, Westbrook, who hadn’t had a particularly good night up to that point, retreated to the locker room, bleeding from one eye after a swipe by the Kings’ Carl Landry. He was gone maybe nine game minutes, and came back with a bumpy countenance and a chip on his shoulder. He finished with 21 points and eight boards as the Thunder finished off Sacramento, 108-102.

And this despite a considerable offensive display by the Kings, who shot 50.6 percent from the floor, knocking down five of nine treys. But OKC owned the boards, 45-33, including 16 off the offensive glass, and when super rookie Tyreke Evans drew two fouls in the last two minutes and connected on only one of four free throws, it was pretty much all over.

Not that Evans was a slouch or anything: he had 24 points. Landry had 20 more, and the Sacramento bench rose for 36. It might have helped their cause if some actual fans had shown up: attendance was reported at a hair over 12,000. I blame Oscar.

Your Thunder Big Three were fairly large, Kevin Durant managing 27 and Jeff Green adding 12. Thabo Sefolosha, who hadn’t been hitting any shots of late, came up with 10 points; Nenad Krstić had only five points but 10 rebounds. Both James Harden and Serge Ibaka came up with double digits off the bench. OKC shot 47.7 percent, but just four of 14 from downtown.

This puts the Thunder at 38-24 with 20 games left, none against the Kings, against whom they finish the season 3-1. A home stand begins Wednesday against the Hornets; the Nets will arrive Friday, and the Jazz on Sunday.

Hollinger’s current Playoff Odds land OKC at sixth with a 50-32 record. Dallas and Utah, says Hollinger, are set to tie for second, but the Mavs get the tiebreaker, so the Thunder end up playing the Jazz. (The Nuggets fall to fourth and take on fifth-place Phoenix.) I can believe we’ll go 12-8 the rest of the way — but we have 12 games left against playoff-bound teams, and only eight against the members of the Lottery League. By no means is any of this going to be easy.

After being thoroughly schooled by the Nuggets on Wednesday, the Thunder took out their frustrations on the not-as-hapless-as-you’d-heard Clippers at the Staples Center, 104-87, demonstrating two Great Truths: (1) OKC has some serious resilience, and (2) the Clips really miss Marcus Camby.

Defense was definitely a priority: the Thunder blocked 11 shots, pulled off 13 steals, and held L.A. to 37.2 percent shooting, 28.6 from beyond the arc. The Clips weren’t lacking in offense — both Chris Kaman and reserve forward Craig Smith came up with 19 points, Kaman recording a double-double, and sharpshooter Rasual Butler added 17 more — but OKC kept them from putting together any serious runs.

The Thunder landed five players in double figures, led by Kevin Durant with 32; James Harden got 15 off the bench. Nenad Krstić posted a double-double, and Russell Westbrook was one assist short of getting one of his own. (The Russmeister had seven steals, more than the rest of the team combined.) OKC shot a tolerable 45.6 percent, hitting five of 14 treys.

Oh, and rebounds? There were literally a hundred in this game, and OKC snagged 53 of them.

This finishes off the season series, with the Thunder taking two out of three. Another series will be completed Sunday, at Sacramento.

When garbage time starts in the third quarter, something is dreadfully askew. Denver led 61-52 at the half, not quite enough to declare victory and empty the bench, but the Thunder managed a mere twelve points in the next twelve minutes, and at one point trailed by 41. This wasn’t a blowout; it was a full-fledged implosion, to the tune of 119-90, and the Thunder pretty much did it to themselves. We’re talking 32.5 percent shooting and 26 turnovers, and only 46 points from the starters. (Remember when Kevin Durant, all by himself, had 39? That was last night.)

In fact, KD and James Harden tied for team high, with 19; Serge Ibaka, who played 27 minutes — more than Durant, Jeff Green or Russell Westbrook — put together the only double-double, with 15 points and 13 boards. Etan Thomas played most of the fourth quarter; Antonio Anderson, currently on a 10-day contract, got his first NBA minutes and first two points.

The Nuggets were pretty much what you’d expect: Carmelo Anthony scored like crazy (30 points), Kenyon Martin reeled in the misses (13 boards), and Nene was a looming presence at seemingly every turn. Denver shot 50.6 percent and scored 50 points in the paint, versus 18 for OKC.

What’s scary, of course, is that Denver right now holds the third seed in the West, OKC the sixth. If those positions hold, it’s Nuggets vs. Thunder in the first round. And if the Thunder have another night like this, don’t even think about a second round.

The Kings must be wondering how many shots they have to make to win a game. Sacramento shot a highly-creditable 53.9 percent, and Rookie of the Year candidate Tyreke Evans knocked down 27 points, but the Thunder got stops late and squeezed out a 113-107 win.

If you read that and thought “Does this mean they didn’t get stops early?” the answer is Yes: the Kings didn’t exactly score at will, but they were efficient, making 41 of 76 from the floor (including five of 16 treys) and 20 of 24 from the stripe. What Sacramento didn’t do was rebound: they picked up only 32, against 43 by OKC.

The Thunder hit 40 of 80, an even 50 percent; they were in the 60s in the second quarter. Two of the Big Three made it to double-double land: Kevin Durant had 39 points and 10 rebounds, and Russell Westbrook came up with 30 points and 13 assists. If your defense isn’t working so well, you might as well have offense, right?

This was the third game of the season series, which OKC now leads 2-1. The fourth will be Sunday at Arco Arena. In between, the Thunder will tangle with the Nuggets (tomorrow) and the Clippers (Friday); the next game at the Ford is a week from Wednesday, against the Hornets.

Addendum: Inspired snark from Royce at Daily Thunder: “Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook and Thabo Sefolosha combined for 69 of OKC’s 113 total points tonight. Durant and Westbrook had 69 of those.”

The Raptors arrived without Chris Bosh, who’s been sitting for a week with a sprained ankle; Toronto went 2-2 during that week, so you might have figured they had a chance in Oklahoma City. The Thunder, however, had other ideas: they spotted the Raptors a 1-0 lead early on, and then took over entirely, running up a lead as large as 26 and finishing up 20, 119-99.

Toronto’s bench scored nearly as much as the starters, contributing 46 points; Andrea Bargnani and Sonny Weems scored 14 each, and DeMar DeRozan DePosited 13 more. The Raptors outrebounded the Thunder, 45-38, reserve forward Amir Johnson reeling in 11 of those boards. You have to figure that Bosh will be back soon, though probably not in time for Monday’s Toronto-Houston match.

Meanwhile, look at this line for Russell Westbrook: 14 points, 10 assists, four steals, one blocked shot (!) and no turnovers (!!). The Thunder pulled off 12 steals, Jeff Green grabbing four along with 20 points. Serge Ibaka posted yet another double-double (13 points, 10 boards), and Kevin Durant pulled 29 again. Shocker of the day, though: Nenad Krstić, who never shoots the long ball, banged out a trey to end the first half. He was so amazed that he tried another one in the third quarter, which didn’t go; he finished with 16 points. OKC hit six of 12 treys and shot 51.8 percent, versus six of 15 and 43.7 percent for Toronto.

So it’s 2-0 for the Thunder during this homestand, with the Kings due in on Tuesday, followed by a road trip: Denver on Wednesday, the Clippers on Friday, and Sacramento, to finish the series, on Sunday.

Sports as a form of religion? Well, maybe, but not quite the way you might have thought:

For me, being a Los Angeles Clippers fan for over twenty years has taught me firsthand about the spiritual dimensions of faith and suffering, and has helped me better understand my own Hindu tradition. According to the Bhagavad Gita, a pan-Hindu theological text, we should act righteously in each moment and relinquish attachment to future rewards. In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna counsels Arjuna on the battlefield and instructs him to act in the present moment without being attached to the fruits of his labor. In this context, Hinduism shares an Indian philosophical worldview with Buddhism that focuses on the process as opposed to the goal, the present as opposed to the past, and the journey as opposed to the destination.

The Clippers have long been derided as the paradigmatic bottom-feeding NBA team. Indeed, in a famous cover story, Sports Illustrated called them the worst franchise in sports history. But their perennially disappointing seasons are a powerful lesson in Hindu philosophy for Clippers fans. We have no championship banners, no MVPs, no retired jerseys — we don’t even have our own arena. As Clippers fans, we’ve never been attached to the fruits of our fandom because we don’t have any fruits to be attached to!

Maybe it’s karma. Lakers coach Phil Jackson certainly thinks so:

He astutely stated that the Clippers aren’t cursed but rather they suffer from the negative karma accrued by their ownership and management. In Sanskrit, the word karma means “action,” and as a philosophical term, karma refers to causality. Karma is cause and effect — a metaphysical caveat to Newton’s third law of motion. Given that the Clippers have historically been managed from a business perspective instead of from a basketball perspective, the effect has been a financially profitable franchise with only a handful of winning seasons.

Meanwhile, the Cleveland Cavaliers follow the King James version of things.

(Via TrueHoop.)

In two previous games at the Target Center, the Thunder beat the Timberwolves by a total of four points. This sort of non-dominance apparently was deemed inadequate for Loud City; OKC never trailed tonight and won it going away, 109-92.

This game also marked the debut of Serge Ibaka, Sharpshooter: the rookie hit 7 of 9 (apologies to Harry Kim). And Russell Westbrook had a whole roll of dimes, serving up 15 assists, a career high, along with 18 points. Besides those two, five other Thundermen showed up in double figures, led by (of course) Kevin Durant, back at the 25-point mark after one night away. The Thunder shot an impressive 54.3 percent, though they were hopeless from beyond the mark (two of 11).

The T-Wolves weren’t much better from downtown, hitting only three of 18; they didn’t climb above 40-percent shooting until garbage time. Still, Kevin Love scarfed up 19 points from off the bench, and they missed only two free throws all night, one fewer than James Harden.

OKC is now 7-2 against the Northwest, which may be a factor if the West continues to be knotted tight. (At this writing, only 9½ games separate second-place Denver from 11th-place Houston.) The Raptors will be here Sunday, the first time we’ve seen the Ragin’ Canadians all season; they’re in fifth place in the East. Then again, the Thunder is 17-6 against the East.

In passing: Shaun Livingston, seen earlier this year in Thunder blue, has signed a 10-day deal with the Wizards. Nice to see him getting another shot.

Before the Thunder won those nine games in a row, they lost three straight.

Which doesn’t mean that they’re going to lose the next game, but two losses in a row has to be just a tad disheartening. Not that this mattered to the Spurs, who methodically explained how age and treachery were superior to youth and skill — these youth, anyway. The game was closer than the 95-87 final makes it sound, but not enough to make anyone feel better.

And speaking of streaks, Kevin Durant’s string of 25-plus games came to a screeching halt tonight: he racked up 21 in the first three quarters, but the Spurs shut him down in the fourth. On the other side, Manu Ginobili’s two-game scoreless streak against the Thunder ended in dramatic fashion: the San Antonio sixth man outscored everyone tonight, with 26 points and nine rebounds. Tim Duncan snagged 15 boards to go with his 19 points.

There were double-doubles on the OKC side as well: KD (12 rebounds) and Thabo Sefolosha (12 points, 13 rebounds). Jeff Green weighed in with a 19-point performance, and Russell Westbrook, taking a long time to get untracked, finished with 17. But the Thunder bench — Scott Brooks played only eight men tonight for some reason — contributed a mere 10 points to the cause, though James Harden did reel in seven boards.

Nobody shot all that well, either: the Spurs shot 42.3 percent, the Thunder a woeful 39.8. And radio guy Matt Pinto was hors de combat, losing what was left of his voice in the first quarter, whereupon they started piping in the TV audio. Let’s hope he recovers quickly.

So OKC is 7-2 for February, with two games left, both at home: the Timberwolves on Friday and the Raptors on Sunday. After that, the schedule gets even more crowded.

The Suns and the Thunder went back and forth at each other for about 47:59.3, but Jason Richardson got the last word, floating one in to put Phoenix up 104-102 with seven-tenths of a second left; that was the end of it, and the end of the Oklahoma City winning streak.

And we can’t blame it on Steve Nash, who wasn’t even in the building: recovering from back pain, we’re told. The Thunder, down by 15 halfway through the third, were up 10 with five minutes left when Phoenix shut the door; they’d get only four free throws the rest of the way.

The Suns dominated the boards (45-35); it might have been worse, but they missed 10 of 27 from the line. Amar’e Stoudemire, who got 35 last time against the Thunder, made 30 tonight; Goran Dragic, who appeared in the role of Steve Nash, was good for a Nashlike double-double, 16 points and 10 assists. Richardson’s floater gave him 20, and he fought for 13 rebounds. And George Hill added 21, just because he could.

The Big Three contributed most of the offense tonight. Russell Westbrook rang up another D/D (21 points, 10 dimes); Jeff Green had 16; the KD streak is now 29 games. (Durant had 36.) But the Thunder couldn’t hit the long ball (4-16, versus 7-13 for Phoenix), and they shot only 44.2 percent while the Suns were over 50. Then again, the on-again-off-again free-throw shooting was on again: they hit 22 of 24.

And tomorrow night in San Antonio. I can only hope that the Spurs are a tad demoralized by losing on the road to a couple of weaker Eastern squads; on the other hand, Pop doesn’t tolerate that sort of thing.

And no, I don’t mean the KING broadcast stations. Frank Hughes of SI.com:

I posed the hypothetical question to a high-ranking NBA official about whether the Kings could move their operations to Seattle, the league’s next-best market, if they are unsuccessful in their pursuit of a new arena — which appears as if it will be the case. Seattle has a ready-made arena sitting in town going virtually unused, and it is in better shape than Arco Arena.

The official said, however, that unless KeyArena is redone, it would not make sense for the Kings to move because they would not make enough money to recoup their relocation fee.

Here’s a thought: For the betterment of a league that clearly is having financial issues, why not waive the relocation fee? The only place that money is going is into the owners’ pockets, a bribe, if you will, that paves the way for a smooth transition. There is nothing that says it can’t be waived so that owners can be more financially solvent someplace else.

Not that the Maloof brothers are (1) insolvent or (2) threatening to move the Kings out of Sacramento. At the moment, anyway.

And whether Seattle is in any mood to grant any concessions to any of those wicked, evil NBA owners is another matter entirely.

The not-so-lowly Minnesota Timberwolves always seem to play harder against the Thunder, and I’m starting to think the X factor here is Damien Wilkins, who was glued to Oklahoma City’s bench last season and then was dealt to the T-Wolves last summer. Wilkins definitely seemed to be enjoying himself giving the Thunder fits; the Wolves, who trailed through three quarters, actually got the lead early in the fourth, and at no point did they ever throw in the towel. In fact, Wilkins fouled Kevin Durant with three seconds and a hair left, and after KD sank both free throws to put OKC up by five, Jonny Flynn sent up a trey at the buzzer. Dribble it out? Not a chance.

So the Thunder escaped, 109-107, after being outscored 56-47 in the second half. And Wilkins wasn’t the only Wolf who had something to prove: the legendary Darko Miličić, who had been languishing in New York, landed in Minnesota and put up eight points and eight boards in 19 minutes. Nobody broke 20, but both Flynn and Kevin Love had 19 (Love adding 14 rebounds), and Wilkins and Corey Brewer (who fouled out in the last minute) had 18; the Wolves’ bench was good for 52 points, offsetting a bad night for Ryan Gomes, who missed all nine of his shots.

Russell Westbrook, who’d been flirting with a triple-double all season, finally rang it up: 22 points, 14 assists, 10 rebounds. Jeff Green added 17 points and 14 boards; KD’s 32 gave him 28 in a row with 25 or more. Shooting percentages were close: 47.1 for OKC, 45.7 for Minnesota.

We’ll have to see these Wolves a third time next Friday, and once more in April. I don’t think they’ll be any easier then.

Um, no. (Note to Sports Illustrated: the Hornets haven’t been in Oklahoma City for quite a while.) But Tracy McGrady indeed got the start despite having played only 48 minutes all year, which suggests that the Knicks weren’t just renting his expiring contract after all. And when the camera fell on T-Mac after a couple of makes, his face said exactly one thing: “God, I love this game.”

He had good reason to. McGrady, looking very much like the T-Mac of old, played 32 minutes and scored 26 points. If he was auditioning for next season, he’s made a hell of a good start on it, and the New York crowd has already warmed to him: with the game knotted early in the fourth, the Garden resounded with calls of “We want T-Mac!” The Knicks, playing not at all like a team with 30-plus losses at the All-Star break, or like a team that just blew itself up for the sake of cap space, forged a six-point lead with a minute left, only to see the Thunder tie it at 105 in the waning seconds of regulation. And in the end, not even T-Mac could keep a lid on Kevin Durant, who scored the last five points to give OKC a 121-118 overtime win.

The new-look Knicks, though, are going to be a force to contend with the rest of the way, and I’m glad we don’t have to play them again this season. David Lee, not a factor at the Ford Center, rolled up 30 points and 10 rebounds at home, and newly-arrived sharpshooter Eddie House added 24 from the bench. Fortunately for the Thunder, the Knicks’ distance shooting was off: New York connected on only eight of 29 treys, though overall the Knicks shot a percentage point better than the Thunder.

The OKC Big Three had to be bigger than usual tonight. Durant wound up with 36 points, which makes 27 games in a row at 25 or more; Russell Westbrook (31 points, 10 assists, 9 rebounds) and Jeff Green (16 points, 11 boards) registered double-doubles.

We’re in the middle of a back-to-back; Sunday’s game is at Minnesota. The rest of the month will be dizzying, in terms of travel: Tuesday at home against the Suns; Wednesday at San Antonio; back home Friday against the T-Wolves again; and Sunday at Toronto.

How did this game go? The line says it all:

DAL  26 28 11 21 - 86
OKC  16 40 22 21 - 99

After rolling up a double-digit lead, the Mavs were utterly crushed in the second and third, and as close as they got in the fourth was eight back. And this despite Dirk the Dagger’s 24 points, the 20 contributed by the ex-Wizards, and a 53-51 lead in rebounds.

The sellout crowd was yelling “DEFENSE!” and the Thunder obliged with four steals and ten blocks, holding Dallas to a meager 32.3 percent shooting. Nowitzki went 9-22; Caron Butler 4-16; Jason Terry 4-15. The wily veterans knew all the right moves, but the Thunder’s gotten pretty proficient at the countermoves.

Seventeen points seemed to be the sweet spot: Russell Westbrook, Jeff Green and James Harden all hit for 17. And while Kevin Durant’s shot was off — he went 9 for 28 — he was still good for 25 points, as he was for the preceding 25 games. But here’s the kicker: the Mavs didn’t get to capitalize on Thunder mistakes. OKC turned the ball over only nine times.

And if there’s anything better than beating the Mavericks, it’s beating the Mavericks for your seventh win in a row. Next: off to Madison Square Garden, to visit the Knicks. Between now and then is the trade deadline, so it’s anybody’s guess who’ll be waiting in New York.

“Lacktion” means exactly what you’d think it means, and nobody has been more enthusiastic about getting the word into the vernacular than the Basketbawful guys; in fact, they have regular lacktion reports on underachieving NBA players.

Of course, if you have a whole squad full of underachievers, you have — well, no, not the New Jersey Nets, even with their four-and-infinity record. But there’s one way to find out what you do have, and that’s what they did: a game, created with 2k Sports’ NBA 2k10, featuring the Null-Stars (!) of both conferences. The game was played, says Dan B., “with five-minute quarters because referees could not be expected to stay awake for that long.”

Lacktion or not, it’s massive fun to watch, with amazing airballs, suboptimal shot selection, and, via the 2k10 canned announcers, every roundball cliché of the last ten years. I thought it was flat wonderful, even especially when it was thoroughly horrid.

I don’t think anyone anticipated this: a sweep of a three-game road trip. New Orleans, maybe; Golden State, probably; but Portland? No way. This team hasn’t won in the Rose Garden since the French and Indian War.

Until now. The Thunder shut down the Trail Blazers early on, watched them come back, and then dispatched them handily in the fourth quarter to win it 89-77.

One can argue that the Blazers weren’t at full strength, but they haven’t been at full strength all season and they were still seven games over .500. In Portland, you step up: Nicolas Batum got 12 points in his first start; rookie forward Dante Cunningham had 14 points (a career high) and six rebounds. LaMarcus Aldridge, who always bedevils the Thunder, had 15 points and 15 boards; Andre Miller dropped in 22 points. Yet the Blazers missed 17 of 20 treys; Steve Blake and Rudy Fernandez combined to miss ten of them.

So the Thunder saw their chance, and they took it. Down two after three quarters, they poured it on: James Harden, who had barely been seen up to that point, rolled up 14 points in the fourth. Jeff Green had yet another reliable 17-pointer; Kevin Durant did the double-double thing with 33 points and 11 boards. They weren’t so much better from beyond the arc — five of 16 — and in fact, the Blazers outrebounded the Thunder, 47-41. But OKC pulled off 17 steals, which gives them 33 in the last two games.

The West continues to knot up. Denver is second, 4½ back of the Lakers; OKC, now at 30-21 — did anyone expect this team to have won 30 games at the All-Star break? — is sixth, 4½ back of the Nuggets. And the Grizzlies, in 11th, are only four back of the Thunder.

The Thunder are on pace for 48-34. Maybe I can work up to uttering the P word later on.

It’s gotta be the halftime instructions. The Thunder trailed Golden State by one after the first quarter, managed to squeak out a two-point lead after the second, and then went up 36-23 in the third en route to a 104-95 win in beautiful downtown Oakland.

Or maybe not. Neither team shot especially well (around 42 percent), and rebounds were pretty even (49-48 OKC). Or you might look at this statistic: the Warriors pulled off a respectable seven steals. Russell Westbrook, all by his lonesome, came up with eight. His teammates had eight more. Golden State, a team which is renowned for its ability to force turnovers, gave up 23 of them, one every two minutes; the Thunder, which isn’t known for brilliant ball control, turned it over only 16 times.

Certainly most of Golden State’s offense was present and accounted for. Monta Ellis was bottled up a bit — thank you, Thabo Sefolosha — but Stephen Curry and Corey Maggette split 47 points between them, and eight of the Warriors’ 23 trey attempts paid off. Inexplicably, they missed eight of 21 free throws.

And here’s a sentence that seems a bit astounding: “Kevin Durant had a below-average 29 points.” Kid Delicious was slow to get started, and only hit 7 of 21 from the floor, but he contributed eight boards to the cause. Westbrook had seven rebounds, 21 points and 10 assists. OKC was 22-24 from the charity stripe and bought six treys in 14 tries. Nick Collison pulled down 10 boards.

So that’s five straight wins for the Weather-Related. There’s one more game on this road trip, against the Frail Blazers (bless you, Basketbawful), who somehow keep winning despite the absence of Greg Oden, Joel Przybilla and Brandon Roy. Either they have the world’s greatest bench or there’s a Rose Garden curse. I think the Lakers believed the latter up until tonight.

The Hornets swept the Thunder last year, swept the Sonics the year before that, and won the first of three games this season. You have to figure that sooner or later this would have to come to a halt, and tonight in New Orleans it did, to the tune of 103-99.

In the absence of Chris Paul, who’s out for a month or so, the Bees deployed a rookie backcourt: Darren Collison and Marcus Thornton. They were up to the challenge: Thornton had 22 points, and Collison served up nine of the Hornets’ 31 (!) assists. Emeka Okafor held down the middle nicely enough — 14 points, 12 boards — and you have to figure that sooner or later Peja Stojakovic is going to nail a trey. (He was three-for-eight.) What you don’t figure, though, is for Peja to be a defensive stalwart, and he caught the Thunder napping: four steals, one blocked shot.

But the Thunder were actually making most of their shots: 42 of 73, for 57.5 percent. (Nenad Krstić made seven of eight for 14 points.) The Big Three were big again: Jeff Green, who seems to get more minutes than anyone of late, picked up 14, Russell Westbrook double-doubled with 26 points and 10 assists (and 8 rebounds), and that Durant fellow, averaging a hair under 30, put in exactly 30, including the last two free throws to ice the game. OKC had a slight advantage on the boards, 43-37, though the Hornets got twice as many offensive rebounds.

What mattered, though, was opening up some space. The Thunder, 8th in the West, were one game up on the Hornets; now it’s two, and the season series is tied at one each. (There are only three games in the series this year.)

Only two more games, both on the road, before the All-Star break.

Yours truly, on the 18th of January:

There’s a lot to like in a titanic defensive struggle that goes right down to the wire.

The Hawks-Thunder rematch proved to be exactly that: tied after the first quarter, tied at halftime, and tied again halfway through the fourth on a Mike Bibby trey. Then the hammer came down, and the Thunder outscored the Hawks 17-10 in the last 5:50 to post a 106-99 win, sweeping Atlanta 2-0 and moving to six games over .500.

Then again, Joe Johnson outscored everyone: seemingly everywhere at once, he rolled up 37 points. Three other Hawks recorded double digits. (Bibby finished with 12.) And the Hawks shot a creditable 48 percent, 2.3 better than the Thunder.

But OKC got the boards, 45-35 (17 off the offensive glass), and Kevin Durant, en route to 33 points, collected 11 rebounds and sank 14 free throws in a row. During those last six minutes, Russell Westbrook was serving up assists left and right; he finished with nine of them, nine boards, and 12 points. Jeff Green was good for 19. But this is the startling figure: only seven turnovers. There have been nights when [fill in name of player] got that many all by himself.

So ends the four-game homestand, with a creditable 3-1. Tomorrow night, a visit to New Orleans, albeit without Chris Paul, then off to Golden State (Saturday) and Portland (Tuesday).

The first thing you always want to know with the Warriors is “How many players suited up?” They had eleven tonight, which for Golden State is a major improvement: back in November, only six Warriors showed up in Dallas. Still, they beat the Mavs, short-handed as they were, so you have to worry if they have an actual bench. And the Thunder did do some worrying: they trailed the Warriors by one at the half, outscored them 33-20 in the third, then watched them climb back to within a single possession. Oklahoma City eventually prevailed, 112-104, but if they’d thought this one was going to be easy, well, they had another think coming.

Having a bench — better yet, a bench that contributed 27 points — made life easier for the hard-working Warriors starters: not even Monta Ellis, who has nine 48-minute games this season and one with 53 minutes, worked more than 40. Ellis rang up 25 points; Corey Maggette poured in 26. GS was particularly good from the free-throw line, nailing 26 of 29. And they had some serious ball movement: 25 assists, versus 17 for the Thunder.

The Thunder, however, controlled the backboards, outrebounding the Warriors 45-31, and speaking of 45, that’s what Kevin Durant managed to push through the cylinder tonight. (His career high is 47.) KD also got 11 of those boards. Russell Westbrook had a hot hand, with 28 points; both Jeff Green and Thabo Sefolosha dropped in 14. The OKC bench didn’t score much — nine points — though they played mostly-sterling defense when they had to. (Serge Ibaka, for instance, blocked three shots.)

The last game of the homestand is Tuesday, against the Hawks; a three-game road trip begins Wednesday in New Orleans.