With 6.3 seconds left in regulation, Victor Oladipo hit a jumper to give the Thunder a 100-98 win on the road in the next to last game of the regular season. OKC played this game without Westbrook, Gibson, Roberson, and McDermott as all were on a rest night getting ready for the playoffs.
It was an extremely upbeat night for the Thunder as their young players stepped up and competed hard on road. Billy Donovan has to be extremely pleased in what he saw from several of his young players, not only for what they could possibly do against Houston, but more perhaps looking down the road to next season.
Victor Oladipo and Domas Sabonis both showed flashes of what they will mean to this team as both of their roles expand next season.
Oladipo struggled with eight turnovers, but had a line of 20 points, 9 rebounds, and 6 assists. I’m hopeful now that Westbrook has his place in triple double history, his game becomes more conducive to making Oladipo’s comfort range expand within his game. Together they have to become a tandem, kind of a symbiotic relationship, if this team wants to take their game to a higher level.
Sabonis had some excellent moments as well. His game is there. It just needs time and some work in the weight room wouldn’t hurt. Sabonis had 19 points and 9 rebounds and is clearly going to be a nice stretch four for the Thunder once he matures as a player.
All in all it was an excellent night for the Thunder as they improved their overall record to 47-34 with tonight’s home regular season finale against the Denver Nuggets closing what has been a very solid season in the first in Oklahoma City without Kevin Durant as a member of the team.
I’m glad it’s over. I’m drained, worn, and exhausted. But most of all I’m happy for Russell Westbrook, our city, and Russell’s family. I’m of the thought he should rest these next two games, but I’m not sure if that’s in Bad Little Dude’s DNA. He’s not the resting type.
I’ve pretty much seen every game Russell has played for the Thunder in his career. The journey of Westbrook from his rookie season to today has been tumultuous at times, but as a fan it’s been rewarding to see his evolution as both a player and a person.
He’s clearly this season’s MVP, James Harden is a very respectable runner-up. James Harden has teammates who can shoot every night. Russell Westbrook has teammates who lose their shots from time to time and on those nights Russell Westbrook has to be the whole package. I’m almost surprised he hasn’t devised a play where he can register an assist passing to himself. I’m not kidding here.
Yet, Westbrook has carried this team to 46 wins and the thought as a Thunder fan you can come to the Chesapeake Energy Arena and anything might be possible with Westbrook on the floor on any given night.
MVP means Most Valuable Player. Russell Westbrook is the most valuable player in the NBA this basketball season. The player who never got anything easy in his basketball career. The player who’s high school coach had to do some talking to get him into that Atlanta camp. The player who almost didn’t get a scholarship to UCLA. The player who had to be Kevin Durant’s second fiddle his entire pro career until this season.
This was Russell Westbrook’s basketball season when he turned into Michael Jordan right before our eyes. When Durant was still here, we thought Westbrook was Scottie Pippen, we were wrong. Russell Westbrook is the closest thing to MJ this league currently has and I’m fairly certain Michael would echo what I just wrote.
But here’s the thing, the real Michael Jordan did indeed have his Scottie Pippen. Russell Westbrook needs one Victor Oladipo to take a big gulp of air and become Russell’s Scottie—if that makes any sense.
We’ll see if Victor has it in him as the days play out this post season and beyond.
But for now, I’m just happy. Russell Westbrook gave me this journey to blog about this basketball season when back on July 4th… I wasn’t so sure there would be all that much to write about Thunder basketball wise.
In a season which has had some truly glorious moments with Russell Westbrook chasing Oscar Robertson, Friday night in Phoenix was genuinely a train wreck as the Thunder no-showed their way to a disgraceful 120-99 loss to the tanking Phoenix Suns. Keep in mind, this is a Phoenix team which grounded their vets already this season and came into last night on a thirteen game losing streak and an eight game home losing streak.
This is a team basically trying to lose and on this night the Thunder were so bad the Suns couldn’t get the loss despite their fans showing up to root Russell Westbrook on for his 42nd triple double.
It was a disgraceful performance by the Thunder, there’s no other way you can say it. From top to bottom, no one showed up on a night which could have been a showcase for Westbrook, the team, and the league.
Russell Westbrook wasn’t the best player in the league last night, he wasn’t even the best player on the floor. That would have been Trevor Booker who torched the Thunder whenever he wanted to on this night in the desert.
If there was a silver lining on this night it was Westbrook’s eight assists which locked his seasonal triple double making him the second player in history to average a triple double in an entire season.
But let’s not kid ourselves here, this was a putrid performance by the Thunder on every level imaginable. This isn’t the type of showing which in any way would sway an undecided voter to cast their MVP vote for the guy not named James Harden.
Having written all that, Russell Westbrook has truly been incredible this season and I hope he and his teammates show up on Sunday in Denver and give the league the type of performance which makes everyone know how truly incredible Russell Westbrook has been this basketball season.
In closing, there shouldn’t be all that much angst from Thunder fans who’ve watched all seventy-nine games so far this season because this is what the Thunder are currently, that being, a team which on some nights can look like a promising young team being anchored by a generational superstar, but on other nights a team which can look worse than a team which was suppose to lose its fourteenth straight game of the season.
It must truly suck to be a Phoenix fan this season because even when you’re suppose to lose–you can’t.
If Russell Westbrook didn’t already have his MVP votes in line with those allowed to vote, he made another strong argument for his case with a scintillating performance on Wednesday night in Memphis. In a season which has had one virtuoso big boy performance heaped on top of another, Russell Westbrook once again put his team on his back and carried them to a 103-100 victory with a 45 point, 9 rebound, 10 assist, 5 steal night and a career high 8 made three pointers.
True, it doesn’t rank as an official trip dub which would have put Bad Little Dude at No. 42 and Oscar Robertson in his rear view mirror, but it was vintage Westbrook as I’m almost certain he yelled, ‘Motherfucker’, and then tapped the top of his head twice after his last made dagger three which in essence solidified the Thunder as the No. 6 seed for the playoffs.
It was a great game as OKC finally won the game even though Marc Gasol and Zach Randolph both turned in stellar performances which made Thunder purists remember how grand this OKC-Memphis series used to be before Golden State lured Durant to Oakland. The first half was a track meet with OKC doing what it does best in transition, but Memphis brought the game to a halt and it turned it into a grindfest. Even Nick Collison got into the fray and banged bodies with Zbo for old times sake. It was just a great basketball game.
As has been the case on multiple occasions this season, Westbrook didn’t really have a second offensive option on this night, but I don’t think the rest of the team was awful in that they competed hard, didn’t play like a group of pussies, and did some nice things in the overall scheme of things.
Victor Oladipo was pretty good with 15 points, but 22 points would have been better, just saying. Steven Adams banged bodies all night long and had 10 rebounds. Kanter was okay with 10 points, but he could have been better as well. Gibson made some nice plays, but still when he’s near the rim with the ball, he needs to finish like a hoss. But still, overall, I’d give these guys a B on the night.
The main take for me tonight was Doug McDermott as in he played 32 minutes because Alex Abrines is hurt ‘again’ and Jerami Grant was a coach’s DNP decision. Here’s what I have to say about this, Euro ball is much less physical than NBA ball, and not even close to what NBA play becomes as far as physicality once post season defensive grinding is present on every defensive possession. I think this is where Billy Donovan has to make a decision and go with Doug McDermott as his rotational player and use the oft hurt Abrines as his situational option. I’m not big on frilly players, OKC needs someone they can depend on filling this role.
Even though this wasn’t an official triple double, in essence it was and OKC is now 33-9 on nights when Russell Westbrook has been other worldly.
OKC improves to 45-33 with four games remaining and is virtually assured of playing James Harden and the Houston Rockets in the first round.
The Thunder get a night of rest then play the tanking last place Phoenix Suns on Friday night on the road. I would guess and hope a decent portion of Phoenix fans will be wearing blue and cheering the making of basketball history on Friday night as a Westbrook-Booker Dual in the Desert looms on the horizon.
It was a lovely spring basketball evening in Oklahoma City. Far removed from July 4th and what at the time seemed like the end of the world for Thunder basketball fans like myself. I’d almost have to describe it as surreal.
Russell Westbrook garnered his 41st triple double of the season on a workmanlike 12 point, 13 rebound, 13 assist night. It was a game in which he didn’t have to work all that hard as his teammates showed up in droves and gave him the help he needs on a more consistent basis for this team to take their game to the next level. It was fitting on this historic night the Thunder played their best game since winning in Toronto on March 16th, and perhaps played one of their better games of the entire season by torching the Milwaukee Bucks 110-79.
We’ve seen him grow up in Oklahoma City. Sam Presti took a chance on him and what we’ve seen is a young player develop into one of the best of this generation and beyond as he only needs one more triple double to break Oscar’s record and have it as his own. He needs 16 assists in these last five games to average a triple double for the entire season. When Kobe gave him the moniker Bad Little Dude he knew exactly what he was talking about.
OKC improved to 44-33 on the season on this glorious night. When Bad Little Dude has tripled doubled the Thunder are 32-9, when he hasn’t the Thunder are 12-24. MVP, MVP…..duh.
This Thunder team is the third youngest in the entire NBA and if they win three of their last five games they’ll end up 47-35. For this Thunder team to win anything close to fifty games is a testament to why Russell Westbrook should be this season’s MVP.
Keep this in mind, in the Thunder’s first season in Oklahoma City these young guys were on the roster…Kevin Durant, Jeff Green, Russell Westbrook, Serge Ibaka, a young Nick Collison, Nenad and others, and you know what their record was…23-59.
What I’m saying here is that other than Russell Westbrook there has been no other constant variable for the Thunder this basketball season. Oladipo has been injured twice. Adams has had some issues offensively. Kanter decided to break his own arm. Andre Roberson still has a broken shot. Young guys like Abrines, Sabonis, Grant, and Christon have gone poof into the night in multiple NBA arenas not located in Bricktown…and sometimes even at home.
But through it all, Russell Westbrook has kept his composure, led this team, and in the process set NBA history. MVP means just that — Most Valuable Player. Who’s the most valuable player to the their respective team is the question. My take is very simple…it’s Russell Westbrook at No. 1 and James Harden at No. 2 because Harden has a much better supporting cast around him which has been taylor crafted by his GM to fit Harden’s specific skill set. Imagine for a second if Russell had Trevor Ariza as his three, or Ryan Anderson as his stretch four, or of all things Patrick Beverly as his back up point guard…imagine all those three things and tell me you don’t think this team would have had a few more wins.
But you know what, I’ve never heard Westbrook bitch about any of that publicly. He’s hung with the hand which he was dealt and made this team respectable…and that’s why he easily has my MVP vote.
Congrats to Russell Westbrook and thanks for a season I’ll never forget.
I love the ladies with the triple double stat lines in the stands. It was fitting. I have to be honest, there was a collective lump in the throat of Thunder Nation on the tenth assist.
It was a great tournament with Oregon, South Carolina, and Gonzaga all making historic runs. But in the end it was a story of redemption as Roy Williams and his Tar Heels came back from last year’s tough loss to Villanova to claim the title. As a basketball fan, you couldn’t have ask for more compelling storylines. Great stuff.