The Oklahoma City Thunder are a young, explosive, thrilling team. They are skilled enough to often overcome a lack of experience in big moments, even in the playoffs.

Until last night.

The Thunder led the Dallas Mavericks by 15 points with just over five minutes remaining in the 4th quarter. The Thunder were just over five minutes away from winning Game Four in their own building, just over five minutes away from evening the Western Conference Finals at two games a piece.

Dallas beat them in overtime 112-105. 

Jean-Jacques Taylor is close to becoming the king of all sports media in Dallas. He’s also a tremendously insightful and funny reporter. Jean-Jacques joined Robert in Hour 2 to talk about the Dallas Mavericks’ deep run into the NBA Playoffs. Click through for a podcast. 

You’ve heard of “precision German engineering” as a sales pitch for automobile brands. How about 24-24 from the freethrow line? That’s German precision, when Dirk Nowitzki is doing the shooting.

Dirk scored 48, including perfection at the stripe that set an NBA playoff record en route to Dallas’ 121-112 win over Oklahoma City in Game One of the Western Conference Finals.

Rolando Blackman was a star in the NBA.  Now, he’s the director of player personnel for the Dallas Mavericks, who just eliminated the 2-time defending champion Lakers from the NBA Playoffs. Rolando joined Robert in Hour 3. Podcast after the jump.

Dear Lakers Fans:

The sky has fallen.

- Dallas swept the 2-time defending champs away with brusqueness usually reserved for pretenders rather than contenders.

- Phil Jackson is all but officially retired. Who wants to coach this hot mess?

- It turns out that Andrew Bynum, the pillar upon which the future of the franchise rests, is kind of a punk.

Robert has a useful saying about postseason basketball: The last shot needs to go in. Last night’s game one between the Mavericks and the Lakers was a great example of this. Kobe missed at the end. Thus, Game One to Dallas, 96-94.

Dallas Wins in 6. Next up, Los Lakers.

Portland beat the Mavericks to crawl back into that playoff series. Dallas now leads the best of seven 2-1.

And, Mark Cuban got hit in the face with an object during the game. Nice touch. Stay classy, Portland.

It wasn’t long ago. We all were curious if the defending champs were simply too soft, too disinterested, too complacent to be seriously considered as a title contender.

Everyone was wrong.

LA opened a can on Dallas last night at Staples, 110-82. Four players were ejected as tempers ran high, and Los Angeles continues to let the rest of the league know who their daddy is.