Tuesday's Five

1. Currently, the Thunder are 1-11 under interim head coach Scott Brooks. Former head man P.J. Carlesimo was canned with a 1-12 record under his belt. Tonight's game against the Clippers just became huge!

2. During Oklahoma City's two game swing in Texas, The Thunder shot 48.8 percent from the field and 89.6 percent from the free throw line - 4.5 and 13.1 percentage points higher than their season average.

3. Since Brooks has taken over, Jeff Green is averaging 17.5 a game compared to 13.7 under Carlesimo. Kevin Durant is averaging 25.1 compared to 21.2. While scoring is up, defense is down.

4. OKC's next ten games are against opponents that are a combined 118-119. Five of those teams have winning records and are a combined 80-39 (Cleveland 20-4, Denver 17-7, Phoenix 15-10, Detroit 15-9, Atlanta 13-9). The remaining five are 38-80 (LA Clippers 6-17, Toronto 10-14, Washington 4-18, Golden State 7-18, New York 11-13).

5. Kevin Durant is leading the team in turnovers per game with 3.1 giveaways. My guess is over half those turns came because he was bumped on a drive and lost control. He has to get stronger with the ball and just stronger in general.

Tuesday Bolts - 12.2.08

• A nice statistical breakdown by Joe on "valuing the rock:" Coach Brooks took over the team as the interim coach and immediately began making changes to the way this team rolls. The changes were needed because the Thunder were becoming the laughingstock of the league. Last in field goal %, last offensive efficiency, last in wins…you get the idea.

• Mike Baldwin writes the Thunder are finding some rhythm: "We all needed a win — players, coaches, fans, the organization,” Brooks said. "It felt good. But we have to put it behind us. We have to continue to get better at the things it will take to get more wins.”

• The extra work is paying off for Jeff Green: "To Jeff Green, the differences are quite noticeable. Whenever he had the ball along the 3-point line last season as a rookie, Green said opponents wanted him to shoot it. They urged him to."

• OKC Thunder Fans is totally revamped and ready to go: "Sometime in 2001 I drove by the under construction Ford Center with my son and asked, “Do you think there’s any chance we could ever get an NBA team in Oklahoma City?” He looked at me like I was ten years old and said, “There is no way Oklahoma City will get an NBA team.” I have forgotten his reasoning, but it convinced me, I drove on and forgot about it. Fast forward to September of 2005 and Hurricane Katrina. Shortly after that disastrous storm we began hearing whispers in Oklahoma City that the Hornets might play here while New Orleans was being rebuilt, and this time I dismissed the possibility out of hand. I was wrong, obviously, and for two incredible seasons we hosted the New Orleans-Oklahoma City Hornets."

Monday Bolts

• Nick Collison sprained his ankle Friday: "Nick Collison sprained his right ankle Friday and did not finish practice. Collison was battling what team officials called soreness in his left ankle in Tuesday night's game, limiting him to 15 minutes against the Clippers."

• CBS Sportsline supports the Bump: "In a sports-crazy part of the country usually concerned only with football at this time of year, Oklahoma City is embracing its first major professional franchise, the NBA's Thunder.

• Jeff Green = Scottie Pippin? Mike Baldwin makes the comparison: "It would be unfair to compare any duo to Michael Jordan, arguably the greatest player in NBA history and Pippen, who collected six NBA championship rings. But if Oklahoma City is to evolve into a playoff team, much less a Western Conference contender, Durant and Green must improve in upcoming seasons. There are similarities between Green and Pippen. Both were selected No. 5 overall. One reason Green admired Pippen was he played multiple positions and was a perennial all-defensive player best known for his all-round game."

• Q&A with Kevin Durant: "What have you learned about this team so far? We work hard and play hard and we play for each other. We love being around each other. That’s one thing that always helps a team out, and we didn’t have as much of that last year. Now you can see the camaraderie and us jelling together. We should be good throughout the year. "

• The Thunder's early schedule favors the team and leads Mike Baldwin to think OKC may get off to a decent start: "One advantage working in the Thunder’s favor is the schedule. Oklahoma City could gain early season momentum and post a respectable record at the All-Star break. Almost half (25) of the Thunder’s first 51 games are against teams that missed the playoffs last season. In contrast, starting Feb. 17, Oklahoma City will play 21 of its final 31 games against teams that reached the playoffs."

• If you're an ESPN Insider, you can read about John Hollinger's second year studs: "Second-year players always make great breakout candidates, particularly in the backcourt. The hard part is choosing a horse -- you can make a case for darn near anyone based on what he showed you on a given night. But four players in particular have the strongest case for making an upward ascent this season. Each one has strong college numbers and at least a halfway-decent rookie campaign on his side."

• Blue Blitz put together a monster season preview post for the upcoming year: "Our #1 skill is, undoubtedly, rebounding. Our lineup, quite simply is huge. Durant is big enough to play PF, but he's an SG. We have a log jam of inside tendencied SF/PFs (Mason, Collison, Wilcox, Smith, Green), and our Centers (Swift, Petro) are like sticks. I mean, we don't have a Troy Murphy like rebounding star, but we can rebound the ball simply because we'll have so many tall guys with hands in the air."

• Joe's final installment of his position breakdown: "The Center position as it was played last year is nothing short of a train wreck. By the numbers it wasn’t the worst statistical position of the five (that dubious honor goes to the Small Forward position), but it was the second worst. It would have been much worse than it was if PJ hadn’t played Kurt Thomas and Nick Collison (both rugged Power Forwards) 53% of the team’s minutes at Center. The remaining 47% went to Johan Petro for the most part (33%), and a bit of Francisco Elson, Robert Swift, Chris Wilcox and Mo Sene."

• User Thor from OKCThunderfans.com had a chance to talk with Kevin Durant at the Oklahoma State-Baylor game: "I had the pleasure of getting to converse with Kevin Durant at the OSU-Baylor game today, and all I can say is Wow. What a great kid! He was nice enough to talk for about 4-5 minutes and sign a autograph. He said that he was having a great time in Stillwater, reminded him of Austin in ways. He was running around with JLIII for most of the day. I am glad KD is the cornerstone of our franchise!"

• And don't forget, today is the open practice!