No Bigs, No Bench, and No Westbrook in Memphis

This might qualify as the Thunder’s worst game of the season to date. I don’t feel as if I’m piling on calling it unwatchable at times. All of the feel good things OKC had been doing of late went out the window on Thursday night in Memphis as the Thunder bumbled to a 114-80 road loss to the Grizzlies.

If there is a silver lining it’s that Oklahoma State fans were able to exclusively watch the Alamo Bowl win over the hapless Colorado Buffaloes. Maybe in retrospect, the Thunder should have played Colorado and we as sports fans might have had something borderline watchable.

Russell Westbrook got ejected somewhere in the middle of the third quarter and quite frankly I don’t blame him for getting tossed. The team around him was so pathetically, brutally bad it didn’t at all faze me when Russell said to himself, “Fuck it, I can’t take any more of this tonight.”

And it wasn’t just Andre Roberson. It was every other Thunder starter. Collectively, Roberson, Steven Adams, Domas Sabonis, and Anthony Morrow shot the ball 4-20. So it wasn’t just Roberson’s man in the paint waiting for Westbrook, it was pretty much the entire Memphis team waiting for Russell Westbrook. I expect this sort of shooting from Roberson because there’s no reason to expect him to make shots in the first place, but Adams, Morrow, and Sabonis should pay some sort of fine to the league for being this bad. They were awful, as in unwatchable awful.

In 23 minutes, Westbrook wasn’t able to garner a single assist. As a team, OKC only registered nine assists in the entire game–which isn’t exactly a shock since someone has to make a shot for an assist to be registered on a score sheet.

Enes Kanter did score 19 points and is my player of the game for OKC if for no other reason than he made some shots and didn’t get ejected on purpose to avoid witnessing this clusterf–k going on around him on the court.

If there’s a moral to the story I guess it’s that when this Thunder team is having a bad night they really have a bad night.

All of the greats, Michael and Kobe included, have had their ejection moments so it’s not as if that should be held against Westbrook. He had enough and can you blame him when your other four starters go 4-20. At least he didn’t go into full Scottie Pippen mode and throw a chair. I wouldn’t dwell on this loss, it could be worse, we could be Dallas Maverick fans.

In closing, a random thought non game realted, Alex Abrines should grow the beard back. He looks like he’s twelve or something without the beard. That’s it, just wanted to write it.

No bigs, no bench, and no Westbrook on Thursday night in Memphis. Just an unwatchable ugly loss.

OKC will host the Clippers on New Years Eve. Enjoy the game and please don’t drink and drive. Make sure you have a designated driver.

I love this ejection. Portland fans voice their displeasure by throwing Bill Walton dolls at the refs.

One thought on “No Bigs, No Bench, and No Westbrook in Memphis”

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *