All in all a very nice performance by the OKC Thunder as they won their fifth straight game in the Corey Brewer Era with a 121-113 win over the LA Clippers on Friday night inside the Chesapeake Energy Arena.
It was a balanced performance by the Thunder as they improved to 42-29 for the season and are now 5-1 in the Corey Brewer Era in OKC if you discount the Portland loss where Brewer hadn’t even practiced with the team before playing in that loss in Portland on March 3rd.
Once again Billy Donovan leaned heavily on his former Florida Gator as Corey Brewer scored 22 points in 31 minutes of play. Brewer also had six steals and four assists as he seemed to be pretty much everywhere. In these last six games Brewer has given this Thunder team a reason to think he could be their Shawn Marion of sorts.
Russell Westbrook tripled doubled for the 22nd time this season and was once again pretty smart in not jacking up bad three point attempts. As per his personal life coach Jim Traber it is another Russell Westbrook out there when he’s not chucking bad three point attempts. I agree. Sit on the bad threes, Rickey and give them the heater.
Steven Adams and Paul George were fairly solid coming off their injuries. Carmelo struggled as he cooled off a bit shooting the ball, but he’s old so cut the guy some slack.
OKC’s bench was excellent scoring 37 points and I thought Billy Donovan managed his bench pretty well. Terrance Ferguson had his second best game as a Thunder player scoring 12 points in a big game against a playoff caliber team. Ray Felton was Ray Felton. Abrines had his minutes monitored closely. Patterson played well and Jerami Grant wasn’t quite the beast he’s been of late in this one only logging ten minutes. Josh Huestis didn’t play and one would think as each game becomes more important in this stretch of games Donovan will continue to lean heavily on Corey Brewer and depending on the situation Abrines, Ferguson, and Huestis will all have their minutes monitored very closely…especially on the road.
Isn’t it ironic with all the coin Clay Bennett laid on the table and with the fanfare of those airport arrivals of Paul George and Carmelo that an unsung veteran role player has possibly turned this Thunder team of dysfunction into something perhaps worth keeping an eye on with eleven games left in the regular season.
I mean, anything can happen in basketball as all of America knows as we just witnessed Buffalo University and Maryland-Baltimore basically shred every bracket in the South Regional. But that’s why you play the games. Who knows, maybe Klay Thompson breaks his thumb all the way or James Harden gets kidnapped by a group of Trump militia groupies who take him to Montana. Who would know in these crazy times we are living in currently?
But know this, all the sudden this Thunder team which looked like a piece of junk not all that long ago has suddenly and somehow apparently corrected itself somewhat.
So why can’t Corey Brewer be Shawn Marion and why can’t Russell Westbrook be Jason Kidd and why can’t Paul George be Dirk?
Anyway—the Thunder are in Toronto for a Sunday game which should give us a better feel as to the legs of the Corey Brewer Era in Oklahoma City.