Berry Tramel: Thunder blasts off
Thunder 102, Kings 89: Unlike last year, new, improved OKC cruises in opener

By Berry Tramel Comments 4
Published: October 29, 2009

You knew things were different walking around the Ford Center before the game.

Oklahoma City’s Kevin Durant was productive without being explosive, scoring 25 points and pulling down 11 rebounds in the season opener on Wednesday night. Photo by Bryan Terry, The Oklahoman

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Tile floors. Granite countertops in the necessary rooms. A new scoreboard that will make your jaw drop unless you’ve been to a football game in Arlington.

Yep, Oklahoma City’s arena was all gussied up.

Turns out, Oklahoma City’s basketball team looks renovated, too.

The Thunder waxed the Sacramento Kings 102-89 Wednesday night in an NBA opener that was mostly unlike anything we saw a year ago in the Boomers’ maiden season.

Call it a mulligan. Call it a grand opening, with last season just a trial run, particularly that awful first game against Milwaukee.

"It’s going to be an exciting year,” said Kevin Durant.

Fans left early, not because hope was lost but because victory was assured early. That sure didn’t happen often last season. Versus the Kings, the Thunder scored on 11 of their first 12 possessions, led by double digits the last 42 minutes and coasted.

Good passing, which is sort of like tile floors in that everything just looks better when you’ve got them, was in abundance. Russell Westbrook had a career high 13 assists, and even Durant seemed in a passing mood, when he wasn’t taking the ball coast-to-coast for driving layups that were the highlight plays of this night.

Coming out of timeouts, the Thunder did wild and crazy things. Like follow their coach’s instructions and score.

The Thunder made 10 of their first 13 shots, eight of their 14 3-point attempts and shot 63.4 percent from the field in the first half. Everything looks better when the ball’s going in the basket.

"It’s fun playing like that,” said Thabo Sefalosha.

Of course, let’s not get overly excited, since Sacramento is the NBA’s worst team. The Kings started Sean May at center. May’s an undersized power forward. There won’t be any Sean Mays in the upcoming lineups, starting Friday night in Detroit.

But this is what up-and-coming teams should do to ragamuffins like the Kings. Early blowout, followed by house party.

This is what that opener four years ago felt like, when a Hornet team that seemed capable of losing 60 blew out the Kings 93-67 in OKC’s historic NBA debut.

That team gave fans a show most every night, which is all anyone really asks for this season and which happened rarely a year ago, when the goal became interim coach Scott Brooks turning the Thunder into something we could stand to live with.

"It’s a totally different feeling this year,” admitted Brooks, who has shed the interim tag.

Extreme home makeover plus extreme team makeover means a lot of happy nights at a Ford Center that looked awesome and, at least Wednesday night, had a team to match.

Berry Tramel: 405-760-8080; Berry Tramel can be heard Monday through Friday from 4:40-5:20 p.m. on The Sports Animal radio network, including AM-640 and FM-98.1