Screenshot : TNT

If you want a tangible explanation for why the Oklahoma City Thunder are down 3-1 in their playoff series against the Jazz and seem destined for a first-round exit, take your pick: Rudy Gobert has effectively canceled out Russell Westbrook’s ability to drive to the hoop; Russell Westbrook has no jumper; it’s been six months since Carmelo Anthony took a shot that didn’t clang off the back rim; Paul George has let Joe Ingles into his head; the Thunder are, for some reason, playing an anachronistic pick-and-roll defense that is manufacturing open corner threes for Utah; Steven Adams looks like he’s one more body blow away from crumbling apart; Carmelo Anthony hasn’t touched the rim with his hands in eight months; Jerami Grant has spent far too many minutes as the Thunder’s most effective player on the floor; grim and gritty Ricky Rubio is good now; the Thunder are constructed in such a way that the absence of Andre Roberson, who cannot shoot a basketball, is crippling; Russell Westbrook played most of Game 4 like an angry drunk; Donovan Mitchell is really good; Carmelo Anthony is shooting the ball like a guy without fingertips.




But if you want a more easily digestible illustration of just how doomed the Thunder appear to be, we have that, too:


That’s Mitt Romney, wearing what appears to be a Rodney Hood jersey [Update: it’s actually a custom Romney jersey, which is somehow worse] over a button-down shirt, taunting Russell Westbrook after Westbrook picked up his fourth foul in the first half. Sorry, but there’s not really any coming back from this. When you’re doing your job so poorly that a whimpering loser like Mitt Romney—most recently seen groveling at the feet of the man he last tried to talk shit to—is rightfully clowning you in an arena full of jeering Patagonia rewards club members, you’ve really fucked up. It’s time to just go home.