OKC Thunder 94 — Utah Jazz 90
It was vintage Kevin Durant the closer using every wiggle, hop, skip, and finish he’s incorporated from Dirk and made into his own game. It was breathtaking to behold. Durant scored OKC’s last eleven points in the game for the Thunder as no other OKC player scored in the last six minutes of play. It was Durant doing what no other player in the NBA save Steph Curry can do with such regularity…namely–close the deal.
I almost forgot…OKC defeated Utah 94-90 on Friday night as Durant hit a tiebreaking three with 1:06 left, then clinched the game with two free throws with two seconds remaining.
For the most part–OKC dominated the game. Leading 52-44 at the half. Then 72-67 entering the third period. OKC had plenty of double digit leads throughout the night, but Utah went on a 16-4 run to tie the game at 87-87 before Durant just basically took the game over in the final minutes.
Remarkably—the Fox Telecast crew prematurely gave Russell Westbrook ‘their’ Player of the Game Award before Durant had even completed his imprint on the game. Unbelievable. So…my No. 1 Star of the Game is Kevin Durant. Not sure about that Fox crew at times.
Westbrook was very good going for 24 points, 7 rebounds, and 7 assists, but Kevin Durant did things in those last five minutes fathers and sons will be talking about until the next game on Sunday against this same Jazz team.
Serge Ibaka was basically awful going 4-13 on an array of wide open shots which were there for him all night if only he could have made a couple. But to Ibaka’s credit, he did make two early fourth period buckets before Durant decided enough was enough and the largesse passing was over for this night. Thank god for that.
Enes Kanter was actually decent tonight scoring 11 points as Trevor Booker jacked with him while a bunch of white people from Utah booed. But you can tell…Kanter is kind of liking all this and responding to it. He was pretty good. Dion Waiters scored ten points in thirty minutes and was okay with those white sneakers.
Gordon Hayward led the Jazz with 19 points and 8 rebounds. Utah was once again abysmal from beyond the arc going 8-28 on the night.
OKC wins their fourth in a row and improves to 15-8 on the season. But more importantly it feels as if Durant and Billy Donovan are both on the same page as to what OKC is and isn’t as an overall team as presently constructed.
A Durant finish for the ages which I’ll tell my first grandson about some day while we’re fishing a farm pond on a lazy spring day.
Utah in Oklahoma City on Sunday evening as the Thunder try to get to 16-8.
Mike Jackson