Last night we attended our first Thunder game at the Ford Center.  After a nice Mexican meal at La Luna, we joined over 18,000 other OKC fans on a beautiful, crisp fall evening at the newly refurbished Ford Center to watch the OKC Thunder take on the Orlando Magic.  We had attended a number of Hornets games when the team called OKC home, and always loved the excitement, even when the Hornets were having less than a winning season.  Once again, we found it exciting to be part of the crowd.  But, you know it's a bad night for the home team when the crowd gets excited that the team is only down by sixteen, rather than the 32-point deficit held by the Thunder at one point in the game.  When you dig a hole that deep, it's almost impossible to climb out of it.  Give it to the OKC fans, they remained supportive to the end, cheering their team on in the face of being on the wrong end of the 109-92 final score.

We never expected the Thunder to be in play-off contention this year, nowhere near.  They are a young team, they have just relocated here, and had a miserable final season in Seattle.  We were not even expecting anything close to a winning season.  However, last night the Thunder just could not seem to do anything right.  To be fair, they were missing their star, former rookie of the year, Kevin Durant, due to an ankle injury.  Their loss last night, however, cannot be attributed merely to Durant's absence.  Also, to be fair, we have watched most of the Thunder games on TV, and they certainly have shown improvement and potential.  Oftentimes, they have held leads, but have seemed somehow unable to close out the game.

 Not last night.  Last night they shot just over 37 percent, seemingly unable to get even uncontested easy lay-ups to fall.  Rebounding was equally dismal, as often there seemed to be no Thunder players under the basket.  They had headed back down the court before even seeing if a shot fell or not.  And as for defense, you know it's going to be a bad night when the opposing team has scored 71 points by half-time.  When the announcer came over the public address system saying that they were going to show replays from the first half, I really couldn't think of anything that I wanted to see again.  Once was more than enough.

Will we return to the Thunderdome?  Sure, we'll be back.  We're willing to stick with the team while they're building and getting better.  We like to be part of the Thunderdome excitement.  But it sure will be more fun when our team at least makes a game of it.