Don’t look now but all the sudden the OKC Thunder finds itself at 5-4 and ‘one’ game in the loss column out of third place in the Western Conference.
The Thunder for the fifth straight game found itself a winner this time with a nice 122-116 home win over Anthony Davis and his Pelicans. Russell Westbrook sprained his ankle with four minutes left in the third period and never returned to the game. Dennis Schroder took over and smoothly guided the team home with their fifth straight win after losing their first four games of the season.
Schroder scored a season high 22 points and Paul George led the Thunder with 23 points. Steven Adams had a nice game and Patrick Patterson injected key three point shooting just when the Thunder needed it on this night. Hamidou Diallo made two rim rocking dunks not long after Westbrook’s ankle injury doing his part to make sure the Chesapeake Energy Arena crowd still had a feel for Wild Thing after the ankle roll. Wild Thing Jr is a player and while Schroder is filling in for the injured real Wild Thing…WTJ will keep Thunder fans hearts singing. He will.
Westbrook’s ankle was x-rayed and came up negative. Who knows how long he will be out?
But two things should work for the Thunder’s favor in case Westbrook misses up to a month. One, they have Dennis Schroder to fill the void and if you look at the Thunder’s November schedule it’s relatively easy with only two games against solid playoff caliber teams…those being Houston this Thursday and at home against the Warriors on Nov. 21st or so.
Real contenders have to deal with injury situations like this. They have to adapt and keep winning games. The Warriors, the Rockets, the Celtics, and the Spurs do this with regularity.
Paul now becomes Batman, Dennis Schroder now becomes Robin. Hamidou Diallo becomes Wild Thing Jr. Raymond Felton becomes the backup point guard again. This is not complex. Suck it up and find ways to win games and become a better team for it when the real Wild Thing has a healthy left ankle once again.
The Thunder are at Cleveland on Wednesday night to play the already tanking Cavs.
Thunder fans should thank their lucky stars Dan Gilbert isn’t their owner.
See the glass half full—the Thunder become a better team long run with other guys learning how to close games without Russell Westbrook.