When Russell Westbrook missed badly on his seventh and last three point shot of the night at about the three minute mark in a one possession game, it felt like ‘here we go again’. But not so as from that air ball moving forward, Westbrook and the Thunder were almost perfect in finishing off the Memphis Grizzlies with a display of cutting, spacing, passing, finishing, and winning in a big game which now puts the Thunder at 24-16 for the season.
For me the play of the game was the Adams block, then Westbrook pushing the ball and finding Oladipo on the right wing for what turned out to be the game changer at just the moment the Thunder needed it most.
Other than Westbrook going an abysmal 0-7 from threes tonight, he was otherwise excellent in recording another triple double and becoming the first player since Magic Johnson to record this many triple doubles in an entire season since the NBA merged with the ABA forty years ago. Think about that. Westbrooks’ triple read 24 points, 13 rebounds, and 14 assists.
My tell all tea leaf important stat of the night had Westbrook only taking 19 shots while the Thunder had 21 assists as a team. Add to that the Thunder had 27 fast break points while the bench kicked in 43 points. All good things.
The Stache Brothers were again excellent in combining for 31 points and 21 rebounds. Enes Kanter played his most minutes in a game this season and is clearly elevating his game in a continual sustained kind of way as this moves along.
Victor Oladipo hit four threes and made the game’s most important shot, but what was even more impressive than him making the shot was the fact Russell Westbrook trusted him enough to allow him to take the shot. I’m circling this play in red for a reference footnote later in the season possibly. Big play from a team, trust, confidence, building standpoint.
Andre Roberson was very good again and quite frankly easily outplayed Tony Allen in my estimation. Really not even close.
Cameron Payne still looks stiff and slow to me, but again it’s been a long time since’s he’s played meaningful games.
Jerami Grant was good and Alex Abrines continues to trend his game upward as each game passes. Lauvernge did some nice things as well. But doesn’t he almost always?
For me the storylines are simple…1 the Thunder made the smart plays down the stretch against a playoff caliber team and won, 2 Oladipo hit the game’s most important shot, and 3 Billy Donovan keeps pushing more minutes of Adams and Kanter together on the floor whenever he can.
The Thunder are now back in 6th in the West and quite frankly when they play like this instead of just watching Westbrook jack threes in the last four minutes they’re a fairly dangerous basketball team.
The Thunder are now 3-3 in the month of January and play at Minnesota on Friday night.