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For anyone who was starting to think that the Western Conference Finals was a forgone conclusion, feast your eyes on this.
Serge Ibaka has rapidly progressed and Thunder have changed status to day-to-day for Western Conference Finals, league source tells Yahoo.
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@WojYahooNBA) May 23, 2014
And this and this and this. While this doesn't mean that Ibaka definitely will play, it certainly changes things as far as the expectations for Game 3 are concerned.
Case in point: I have a buddy at work that I love to talk basketball with, and when we spoke this morning, he wasn't in the least bit interested in talking Spurs-Thunder. Now, he's a Detroit Pistons fan (poor guy) so he has no rooting interest besides the desire to see something dramatic and thrilling. (He just wanted to talk about a Spurs/Heat Finals.) And as Michael Erler recently wrote, there's been very little compelling basketball played in the WCF so far.
But IF Ibaka came back and IF he's anything close to 100% ... well, this changes everything. Doesn't it?
...
As far as the expectations of the series go, I mean. Of course.