OKC Thunder 103 — Detroit Pistons 87
Current Detroit Piston and ‘sometime’ minimalist Reggie Jackson returned to Oklahoma City to play against his former mates for the first time since he and his agent pretty much gave Sam Presti an ultimatum at last year’s trade deadline. The much anticipated Reggie Jackson-Russell Westbrook mano y mano never materialized though as both got into foul trouble and were both borderline horrible on the night.
As expected—Jackson was booed without mercy as if he were Ron Artest, Patrick Beverly or even the douche bag Bill Simmons. The OKC crowd was not ambiguous with their reaction to Jackson–pretty much saying, “You suck and we hate you”. I have to admit I didn’t boo because I don’t feel Reggie Jackson is boo worthy, but I did smile amidst the booing.
It didn’t matter that Westbrook fouled out and perhaps played his worst game of the season with an 11 turnover atrocity of a game because No. 35 for the Thunder was in a word…. sublime.
On nights like this, you realize just how lucky you are to be witnessing one of the most efficient, natural scorers in the history of the game. You realize that Kevin Durants don’t come around all that often even to big city markets, let alone sleepy NBA outposts like Oklahoma City. You just pinch yourself and enjoy the evening in Mystery, Alaska with the locals.
On the night, Kevin Durant scored 34 points, grabbed 13 rebounds, handed out five assists, and blocked three shots. With Westbrook too hyped up to eviserate (spelling?) Reggie Jackson and delight the crowd like a bullfighter going for the kill–Durant had to carry the load on this night and more than delivered the goods in an OKC 103-87 win over the Pistons.
Kevin Durant is easily my OKCThunderGround No. 1 Star of the Game.
OKC’s defense wasn’t very good in the first half and the Thunder trailed 55-48 at halftime. But in the second half it was a different story as OKC held the Pistons to 32 points and an 11-46 shooting performance. Behind much better team defense and Kevin Durant—OKC ground the life out of Detroit by a 55-32 margin in the second half. There was no drama needed at the end as OKC improved to 11-6 and garnered its first four game winning streak of the season.
Other things:
- Steven Adams despite playing with what looks like a dead animal nailed to his head—grabbed 13 rebounds and scored eight points on a 4-5 shooting night.
- Serge Ibaka was solid going 7-8 from the field and blocking four shots.
- Kanter chipped in 14 points and filled his bench role.
- DJ Augustin was needed with Russell having an off night and was what I would describe as a functional backup point guard.
- Waiters had an off shooting night but did other things pretty well.
- Morrow only played eight minutes and basically did nothing except make sure Kyle Singler never saw the floor—and rate a 6.6 on the MSKSNSTF metric.
- Thought Billy Donovan did a nice job. He seems to be gradually getting a better feel for his ball club.
- Quiet night for Nick Collison.
- For the first time this season Andre Drummond didn’t grab at least ten rebounds.
- Reggie shot 4-16 and was -20.
- Combined—Reggie and Drummond shot 11-32 in the game.
- Marcus Morris has one of the best beards in the NBA and led the Pistons with 17 points.
- Brandon Jennings and Jodie Meeks would have helped Detroit in this game.
Next up–at the Atlanta Hawks on Monday night.
Mike Jackson
I constantly spent my half an hour to read this webpage’s posts everyday along with a mug of coffee.|