Thunder Will Show Solidarity

By Randy Renner

Thunder players came out on the floor for warm-ups tonight wearing black leggings, sock and shoes. Normally players wear white shoes, socks and leggings at home. The move is to show solidarity with the Los Angeles Clippers.

There were rumors earlier in the day, before NBA Commissioner Adam Silver announced a lifetime ban of Clippers owner Donald Sterling for recent racist remarks, that if the NBA didn't drop a sledgehammer on Sterling that players on all the teams involved in tonight's playoff games would boycott the contests.

Thunder head coach Scott Brooks was asked about that before the game but said he'd not heard anything about it and didn't want to comment further on a hypothetical situation.

As to the commissioner's ruling on Sterling, Brooks said "I'm proud of the commissioner's quick response. I think it's great. As a former player and now a coach we didn't like what transpired (with Sterling's recorded comments) so hopefully now we can out it behind us. Adam is a great leader, he made us all proud."

Thunder Chairman of the Board Clay Bennett released a statement this afternoon saying in part, "The Thunder strongly supports the decisive action taken by the commissioner. Ours is a league of inclusion, tolerance and fairness."

As far as basketball is concerned...

• Defense has been dominant in the series so far. Kevin Durant is shooting just 39.6 percent overall and 26.5 percent on his 3-pointers. Zach Randolph is hitting just 36.0 percent of his shots and Mike Miller is shooting a mere 27.3 percent overall. Durant says he’s only changing one small part of his routine during his shooting woes, “I have to not read the media stories and not look at Twitter and Instagram.”
• As a team the Thunder have struggled from beyond the arc hitting just 25.5 percent of their 3-point shots. That’s next to last among the 16 playoff teams (Brooklyn 25.0 percent). Joerger said, You gotta anticipate more shots are gonna go in for them.”
• Brooks said he will probably do the same thing tonight that he did in Saturday night’s game and that’s put defensive specialist Thabo Sefolosha on Memphis point guard Mike Conley to start the game. “I think Thabo’s length bothers him and we want Thabo to harass him in the back court too.”
• When Thunder guard Derek Fisher takes the floor tonight he will set a record for most NBA playoff games played (245). He’s tied with Robert Horry right now. Going into tonight’s game Fisher is closing in on the record for playoff wins. He has 153 (third all-time) behind Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (154 playoff wins) and Horry (155).

Tipoff is set for a few minutes past 8 o'clock and you see the game on Fox Sports Oklahoma. Our cameras will be in the lockerroom and at the podium for postgame comments so click back after the game for those videos.