Houston Rockets vs. Oklahoma City Thunder game preview

When I was in high school, every teacher had a 24-hour cooling off period after they returned tests or papers.

The idea was simple: in order to prevent whiny private school teenagers from raging against them over their bad grades, they refused to discuss any grades until 24 hours had passed. What ended up happening was that the original emotion of anger would generally pass in that time period and teachers wouldn't have to deal with any complaining. Teenagers are fickle. The teachers knew that. Ergo, they used it to their advantage.

Well, they used it for most kids. You see, your guy AK could hold a grudge like nobody else. While other students would think, "Hey, one bad grade is okay. If I get a good grade on the next paper/test, I can still get an A or a B," I was stewing. I pored over the assignment and wrote down everything I could think of to use as ammunition the next day. I would show up with pages of organized notes detailing why my teachers were intellectually inferior to me and why I deserved an A+++.

Needless to say, I didn't have a lot of friends in high school.

Still, I think that my ability to get pissed off and organize my thoughts will come in handy today. So instead of a long preview about the Rockets and the Oklahoma City Thunder (who are going to win this game, probably by 20), I've decided to start listing grievances. Some will be whiny. Some are illogical and unfair. Some will be stupid. I don't care. Featuring bullet points, the Lazy Man's Friend (h/t Xiane).

Daryl Morey

• Yes, even the Boy Genius gets a little flak here, if only because we really need a tweet from him assuring us that his advanced statistical analysis says we are better than we are. I know he would be lying. You know he would be lying. But I need him to lie to me.

Kevin McHale

• This isn't all on him, but a lot of this is on McHale.
• Remember last offseason when he and JB Bickerstaff retooled the defense? Guess that didn't happen this summer.
• Maybe teaching your players how to defend a pick-and-roll would be nice. I mean, we run the damn thing ourselves, so our guys shouldn't be looking at it like it's a foreign object.
• I understand the need for spacing, so why not trot out an even smaller lineup? I think Spud Webb and Mugsy Bouges are available somewhere. A Bouges-Webb-Lawson-Bev-Harden group would spread the floor like never before. I mean, they wouldn't be able to defend the paint, but if you'll just read the second bullet point up there you'll see that it doesn't matter.
• Maybe play guys in the second half who played well in the first half. Are we trying to hide Montrezl Harrell from other teams? Like we're going to spring him on someone in the second half during the playoffs and they won't be ready? This is silly coach. Play the kid.