The Oklahoma City Thunder's chances of obtaining the seventh seed have slimmed down after losing to the Dallas Mavericks in a high scoring affair. First things first, what a terrific basketball game. That might go down as one of the top five games of the season. Now down to business. Without Kevin Durant and without Serge Ibaka, the Mavericks are simply better than the Thunder. The offensive execution was smoother, and at the end of the day, Dallas outlasted Oklahoma City. 

In a lot of ways it seems as though the Thunder's season ended today. No one is beating the Golden State Warriors unless someone gets hurt, and the Thunder pretty much lead the league in the injury department. Steven Adams appeared to roll his ankle pretty good on the last play of the game as the season from hell continues for OKC. 

Enes Kanter and Anthony Morrow played especially well, but Westbrook did not despite notching yet another triple-double. It's obvious at this point what the Thunder can't do, defend. Without Ibaka and Durant to a degree, OKC simply cannot do anything remotely well on defense. Remember all those times you hated Kendrick Perkins? Well, Kanter is the anti-Perk in every sense of the word. Kanter is a dominant scoring center, one of the best in the game, but his defense leaves a lot to be desired to put it kindly. He's incredibly soft on defense. It would honestly be better if he fouled more. Instead, Amar'e Stoudemire took him to town. 

Westbrook was rattled all night. His shot wasn't falling, but he just kept shooting it. He finished with 31 points, 11 assists, and 11 rebounds but went 10 of 32 from the field and committed six turnovers.

What has become a nightmare of a season for the Thunder only continues to go in the wrong direction. The brightest spot of the Thunder's season has to have been Kevin Durant stating he would like his jersey retired in Oklahoma City, and that he would like to stay in one spot his whole career. If the Thunder has to lose one more season in order to keep Durant for 10 more, they'll take that trade off any day. The window is open as long as 35 is in town. And for the Thunder's sake, they better hope he re-ups, because they can't seem to win these close ones without him.