Carmelo Anthony is convinced the Thunder are playoff-bound despite a comically close race for the final five spots in the Western Conference.
Melo guarantees the Thunder will make the playoffs, and says that’s really what they’ve had their eye on all season: https://t.co/2upi1y5KSB
— Royce Young (@royceyoung) March 28, 2018
Melo last played beyond the final game of the regular season in 2013, and had grown sick of taking an early vacation.
OKC (44-31) currently holds the fourth seed, and five of their remaining seven games are against teams that would be in the postseason if it started now.
Per ESPN:
“We’ll be there. We’ll be there,” Anthony said Wednesday. “I think we’re confident enough to know that we’ll be there. Where? We’ll see when that time comes, but I believe we’ll be there. It’s something we planned on doing when we put this team together. It’s something at the beginning of the season, this is what we were looking forward to. This is why we put this team together.”
With reigning MVP Russell Westbrook and the additions of Paul George and Anthony, expectations were lofty for the Thunder coming into the season, with a likely sub-50 win season unexpected. But Anthony said the Thunder have had their eye beyond the regular season all along.
“I think the expectations were put on us,” he said. “Yeah, of course we wanted to have a better record at this point in the season with the team that we have, but our expectations was to be the best team we could be with the understanding we have the opportunity to do something great. And we have an opportunity to make a run in these playoffs and potentially play for a championship.
“That’s the goal, that’s the ultimate goal,” Anthony added. “Everything along the way, up until then, it was a little bit expected because it was something we put together so quickly; we had to make adjustments and whenever you put something like that together it’s going to take time for it to work. But this is a learning curve for all of us. But I think in two weeks, a week-and-a-half, two weeks, we continue to do what we do, take care of our business and I think people will forget about the regular season and focus on the postseason.”
