If an antonym exists for this brand of broadcasting boosterism, that word could be used to describe what certain Oklahoma City Thunder followers think of ESPN/ ABC’s No. 1 broadcasting team. Pompon shakers in Loud City are obviously disappointed that the Cinderella season came up a bit short, leading some to even accuse announcer Mike Breen and analysts Mark Jackson and Jeff Van Gundy of being biased against the local franchise.
“Some of the Thunder fans thought you might have been rooting against the Thunder,” sports media columnist Mel Bracht of The Oklahoman said. “How do you respond to that?” “There’s no way in the world that we have anything against the Oklahoma City Thunder,” Jackson said in a conference call, according to the Sporting News.
“Our job is to speak the facts. The facts are that a couple of games in the series there were breakdowns, and they didn’t play as well as they could have played. They had a couple of games won, and they did not win them. But they had a great season, and they should be extremely proud.”
On May 24, LeBron James of the Miami Heat went so far as to blame Thunder head coach Scott Brooks, the 2010 NBA Coach of the Year.
“I don’t want to sit here and be the coach of OKC, but I seen a lot of things that could have been done better,” “King” James said of the Thunder’s Game 4 collapse versus the Mavs, according to The Miami Herald.
Sure, the Thunder blew a 15-point lead in that game. (If you’re keeping score, that’s the exact number the Heat squandered away June 1 in Game 2 of the NBA Finals against Dallas.)
Even Rumble the Bison saw the similarities.
“I hate to say it, but that game looked hauntingly familiar…,” the mascot tweeted after the Mavs’ win over Miami.
This article appears in Jun 1-7, 2011.