New jazz for young Thunder
We were chased out to the front porch – OK, I told my wife I didn't want to hear an Alanis Morrisette song done karaoke-style and I dragged her from the bar out to the front porch to get away from it – and it was time to go, anyway.
Past midnight on a Monday in any town, let alone Oklahoma City. Column to finish ahead of a long drive.
It took until well after midnight to find a tolerable temperature to sit outside in a sportswriter's blazer in OKC. "Magic Man" came on, solid work by the next karaoke contestant, my fake-beer is gone, this garden is nice but my money moved over and I'm ready to leave a tip. Midway through the karaoke-approximate of the Heart synthesizer solo, two women walk in. I don't think they even ordered drinks, just went right to the karaoke host and dialed up.
To-night ... oh, boy, that's Kelly song.
It is also the Guy at the Bar in a Chet Holmgren Jersey's song.
Let's deliver correctly, every Queen song is Kelly's song, even that music hall junk they ruined 'A Night at the Opera' with.
But this tune, mostly overlooked in its time, rediscovered in recent years due to its driving pop exuberance and wicked, winding guitar solo, this is one of the good ones. "Don't Stop Me Now" hits and I was out of the porch and back into that bar with my wife's hand before ANYONE could accuse me of being anything less than a Mr. Fahrenheit.
See, the Oklahoma City Thunder play that Queen song after every home win and I can't hear it too often. This is the town where Queen and Brian May blew Garth Brooks' mind, and I love to stand in front of the massive speakers and re-listen to that guitar solo over and over because the Oklahoma City Thunder play that guitar solo, over and over, after every home win. That's 45 spectacular "Don't Stop Me Now" airings in 2024-25 alone, and they've been playing the song in celebration for a few years now during the postgame interviews.
Remember those local ones? When Jalen Williams, no matter what his box score looked like, gathered teammates big and small to surround him while speaking with OKC sideline reporter Nick Gallo? A group of buds that don't want to stop at all?
The ABC audience got a taste of it on Monday night. The Thunder won, J-Will balled out, Freddie Mercury snuck the word "woman" in his song somewhere simply so an NBA team would be able to use his anthem to celebrate basketball wins 47 years after his track – a track Queen's guitar player did not fully enjoy, for its lyrical thrust – hit stores.
No offense to Nick, but I needed to see a broadcast-level coronation, Williams (who turned 24 in April) gathering teammates under the gold of ABC's Finals graphics. The Thunder are up 3-2, Indiana can win this series and that would be basketball, but at least the Thunder got to show off the group huddle.
That's the difference now, the Thunder won the close game they lost in Game 1. Pair that with Game 4's resiliency, balancing over the wire, and we have a basketball team that is better than it was a week before. That happens with NBA teams on Jalen's side of 25, but not usually in the playoffs. Not usually in the Finals.
The championship round is typically something to survive, not for OKC. They're growing, but onstage.
Could there be a finer, clearer, Second Dude step-up performance? Williams didn't simply deliver buckets, he constructed answers. Pacers were Pacers, the difference in score was inexplicably always around 12-points, but sometimes Indiana would crawl to nine. To seven, to six. That's when Jalen Williams added points 30 and 35 and 18 and 11 all the other ones he earned on the way toward 40.
It wasn't labored, there were no heat checks or rainbows to ride, J-Will didn't flip anything up and hope arc answered all. No, Williams dug and drove and worked off square angles, Game 5 was the look of someone at practice, running the same move successfully a dozen times before moving onto the next.
Except, this wasn't practice. I already mentioned ABC, they brought several cameras. And there was the matter of the Oklahoma City crowd. Loud! They remind us.
Did the noise rattle Indiana? Nah. Oklahoma City's basketball team does that. Oklahoma City just makes the rattlin' fun.
Remember how they used to clap in unison before concerts, anxious for the headliner to hop on out? I've never done that, have you? OKC does that, and for sports.
Happy to play a winter sport in June. Winter is when Tyrese Haliburton got right, he ain't right anymore (missing all six field goals in Game 5), the Thunder barely stopped to notice. Launching T.J. McConnell into extra fourth quarter minutes is a larger ask than we'd guess at: McConnell is 33 and didn't play more than 27 minutes in a regular season (non-overtime) game in 2024-25.
McConnell (18 points, two steals, four boards and four assists) earned a podium trip on Monday night but couldn't make it, instead spending that time agonizing on the trainer's table adjacent to the podium room, undergoing intense back and leg treatment after running for 22 minutes in the loss. It is different, this time of year. These are the same legs the same trainers were pounding into nine months ago, on the chance their team is two of 30 to play in mid-June.
Late June. These Finals were scheduled as if to accommodate a sportswriter driving to and from each contest without using highways, and Game 6 isn't until Thursday. It will serve as Game 101 for McConnell and Obi Toppin, last seen utilizing every last bit of his leaping prowess to line a threat against Oklahoma City. Game No. 100 for Pascal Siakam, playing wonderfully but unable to consistently utilize his size against the Thunder thus far.
Who could, among those arms? This is what we pictured before these Finals started and the same image remains after five beautiful, somewhat humid, basketball games. The Thunder appear an impenetrable fortress, but the Pacers already won twice and nearly thrice.
Nearly-nearly thrice, to the point where Thunder fans considered Game 6 a coin-flip. Thoughts of Game 7 were so palpable amongst Game 5's exiting line that podium Tyrese Haliburton (after using the word "pace" twice in his first twenty words) had to chase away the thought. Return the Finals tent to its one game atta time tick.
Indiana has that sense, that perspective, and that coaching staff. It will have two full days to recuperate in Indiana before working on Thursday night, at home. It may not matter.
Oklahoma City's flat locker room reminds me of an even equalizer scroll, no peaking trebles or booming bass, no scooped mids in the Oklahoma City lineup. The encouragement, after Game 5, was to remain level. The Thunder may not win in Game 6, but it won't be because they're pinging all over the place.
That's my anticipation. For an NBA team mostly made up of the same ages which battled fiercely for karaoke supremacy at the Grand Royale on Monday night.
Thunder coach Mark Daigneault didn't mean to flex when he pushed his arms together and reminded all of us that Jalen Williams is but a third-year professional, unreal, Chet Holmgren owns the same experience only on a technicality and combustible Cason Wallace boasts even fewer reps.
What will the reps reveal in Indianapolis? Will we see McConnell instead of, or alongside the aching Haliburton?
Pacers coach Rick Carlisle inserted the reserve point guard in exchange for Andrew Nembhard late in Game 5 but that wasn't the same as a switch, in this quarterback controversy. Kind of a copout, like bringing the wildcat quarterback in to play running back alongside the regular quarterback.
No, the minutes will remain the same, and should. The Pacers must make open three-pointers and stay out of the way of the whistle. Same thread, series-long.
Oklahoma City? I assume the Thunder will once again return to passing the ball over and over until Bennedict Mathurin is in front of it.
FUN IT
Recorded as a tax dodge and the fidelity proves it, 'Jazz' isn't fascist or funky and you've heard its two most-popular songs far too many times. But you haven't heard enough of Freddie making up words, that's the opening track, and it is always good when Roger and Fred duet, that is 'Fun It.'
Many things are happening that I want to write to you about but the hotel asked we leave, so,
