It wasn’t pretty. The first 36 minutes were a microcosm of the Thunder’s woes against bad teams this season, but then something happened to start the fourth period.
That something was Raymond Felton. With the Thunder bumbling around the first three periods while I was watching OU beat Kansas in Lloyd Noble and listening to Matt Pinto broadcast the Thunder game, the Brooklyn Nets were hitting a slew of threes which had them leading by 15 points at one point, and by 11 points entering the fourth period.
This is when Raymond Felton beat his chest, yelled something like…”Let’s fucking go”, and then saved Billy Donovan from another embarrassing loss against a bad team.
Felton was brilliant. He scored 10 of his 14 points on the night in the fourth period. On a night when the Thunder as a team only had 12 assists, he had four helpers. He was +12. I sat there wondering if Billy Donovan would be smart enough to keep Felton in the game after Westbrook re-entered in the fourth. Billy D passed this test and kept Felton in the game deep into the fourth period. That alone coupled with the fact Alex Abrines never saw the floor allows me to give Billy Donovan a pass for the first thirty-six minutes.
But it wasn’t just Felton off the bench who made a difference in this comeback. Patrick Patterson hit two huge threes in the fourth period. Josh Huestis hit another huge three. Terrance Ferguson only shot 1-5 on the night, but I liked his energy in the fourth. Same with Jerami Grant. The bench was great when it mattered.
Then Russell Westbrook entered the fourth period and closed the deal. Felton was the middle reliever and Russell Westbrook was Rickey Vaughn the closer.
With 3.3 seconds left, Westbrook drove the right side of the lane and assaulted the basket for what turned out to be the game winner for the Thunder.
Brooklyn inbounded to Spencer Dinwiddie, but Andre Roberson blanketed his man and the shot fell short as the Thunder improved to 27-20.
Paul George added 28 points and Carmelo had a quiet night. It looked like Billy Donovan wanted to sub Jerami Grant on defense for Carmelo those last 3.3 seconds, but quite frankly it appeared to me Carmelo waved off Donovan and finished the game.
Remember the 4th Rule of Coaching…. ‘Your stars at times have to coach the team from within.’ I have no idea what the dimwits at Fox said in their postgame, but that’s kind of the way I saw it there at the end.
To me, there are no style points in NBA regular season games. Just win the game, stay healthy, and move on to the next frame. What happened in those first 36 minutes doesn’t matter, it’s what happened in the last 12 minutes which has the Thunder at 27-20 and seven games above .500 for the first time this season.
Was a turner corned? Of course not. But other than the Golden State Warriors has any other NBA team this season really turned any corners of sort? And, to be clear, it’s not like the Warriors have been anything special, they’re just obscenely loaded because of Durant’s presence on their roster.
Maybe more to the point, the NBA as a whole isn’t a league of corner turning this season, but more of a league of spurts, mini runs and mini slumps.
It doesn’t matter. The Thunder won a game they needed in a bad way and survived.
Ray Felton was the star in this one, but needed Ricky Vaughn to come out of the pen and close the deal.
Win, survive, and advance.
The Thunder host Scott Brooks and the Washington Wizards on Thursday night.
Just win, Thunder.