Oklahoma City Thunder 113 — Utah Jazz 91
While the world stood still riveted to a twitter/instagram war between half wits Donald Trump and Ted Cruz over their wives, OKC’s Thunder quietly went about their business on Thursday night with an easy 113-91 win over the Jazz inside the Chesapeake Energy Arena.
The Thunder caught the Jazz on the second night of a road back to back and it was fairly easy for the Thunder as they coasted to their sixth straight win while improving to 50-22 for the season. With the Clippers swooning of late, OKC’s lead for the third seed has increased to 5.5 games with ten games left to play. It would appear the top three seeds in the West will hold firm heading into post season.
Six different OKC players scored in double figures and it was a game in which both Durant and Westbrook played light minutes–so light in fact even Sam Presti’s special project Josh Huestis saw the floor for five minutes of action and made a basket.
OKC’s bench scored 52 points on the night with Enes Kanter and Dion Waiters going for 16 and 17 points respectively. For the second straight game, Dion Waiters was good and he’s my No. 1 Star of the Game.
OKC now embarks on a final ten game stretch of ten games with seven being played on the road. The Spurs are in Oklahoma City on Saturday night for the national NBA Game of the Week where we’ll see if there’s something to this six game streak or just a case of OKC beating six mediocre teams in a row.
Some potentially great games in this stretch with the Spurs twice, at Toronto, at Detroit, at what will be a desperate Houston team, at a Denver team which has been playing well of late, and at the dumpster fire Sacramento Kings as the George Karl experiment winds down. They should have kept Michael Malone as their coach, but that’s in essence why they’re the Kings.
Can’t wait to see what happens on Saturday night. Have the Thunder turned a mini-corner or has it just been the ease of the recent schedule? Either way–the Thunder are playing better and there’s a more upbeat feel in Oklahoma City about the season heading into the playoffs.
Mike Jackson