(AP Photo/Chris Carlson)
Let’s just start with this: You know how many points the Clippers had in the fourth quarter? Ten. Ten points.
The Thunder cranked up the defense and the effort late to lock away a nice road win against the Clippers, 83-79 in a game that wasn’t pretty. And the Thunder’s won ugly a couple times this year. Which I think is huge because when you can win games like this – come from behind, make key plays down the stretch and finish – it goes a long way in the final standings. You can say it all the time but this is a game OKC loses last year. But this time, they finish the deal.
One thing that has to be gotten out of the way: Oklahoma City trailed by seven late in the third when Russell Westbrook got stepped on and had to leave the game. The Thunder promptly went on an 18-6 run to take the lead about halfway through the third. I don’t think it was so much Kevin Ollie (though he did have 11 points and five rebounds) as it was James Harden (seven points, eight assists, five rebounds). Harden took over the role as playmaker and set up a bunch of good looks and scored a little himself. Games like this show exactly why he’s the fit for this team. Fear the Beard.
But let’s be honest, Westbrook was out of control. He was 1-11 from the floor and had just three assists in 22 minutes. Ollie really steadied the offense. It seemed like Westbrook started pressing when things weren’t going right and he desperately wanted to make a play and he couldn’t get it going. I feel like he’s taking two steps forward, one and a three-fourths back every other night. He’ll get there but there will have to be nights like this.
I want to say it was coincidence that OKC’s run at the end of the third happened when Westbrook went out. But the reality is, Harden came in, started making plays and the offense opened up. I’m not piling on Russ by any means because Lord knows I’m one of his biggest fans and supporters, but he has these games. And I’ll say it until you’re sick of it – he’s in his second year and he’s 20. It’s gonna happen. Not everybody can be Chris Paul.
And I know Kevin Durant was the clear player of the game with 30 and 10, but Serge Ibaka played some HUGE minutes in the second half. Chris Kaman started having his way with Nenad Krstic and I guess Scott Brooks didn’t feel great about Etan Thomas (only four minutes), so Ibaka got the call. Now he fouled out in just 16 minutes and his line isn’t going to blow you away – four points, three boards and a block – but his energy, help defense and effort was huge. He defended Kaman as well as you can forcing him into six straight misses and holding him to just a handful of second half points. I think we’re going to have a little more Serge in our future and that fires me up.
That said, in a crucial possession with 30 seconds left and the Thunder up three, Krstic played some excellent defense on Kaman, forcing The Ugly One into a bad turnover which sealed it for OKC. It’s not like Krstic was bad, but Coach Brooks sensed the game getting away because of the Clips inside presence and he made an adjustment and went with Ibaka. It turned out to a good spark.
Quick thoughts:
- The Clips play some seriously lazy defense at times. Early on, Durant lightly curled off a pick and had no one chasing him really. I think Durant was kind of surprised how open he was. He’s not used to that.
- I just want to thank Rasual Butler for taking bad shot after bad shot. He went 2-8 from 3 and 2-10 overall. A lot of that is Thabo of course, but a good part of it was just dumb shooting.
- Westbrook has good ideas but makes decisions too quickly. There’s a difference between being indecisive and thinking too quickly. He’ll often get into the lane and have his head up, looking to make a pass. But everything is so congested because he’s so deep in the lane that nothing is there.
- Thabo with eight rebounds tonight. He’s honestly been a huge part of the Thunder’s rebounding thus far. Got to love his effort.
- The Thunder held the Clips to 36 percent shooting. They’re the fourth team OKC has held under 40 percent.
- At this pace, OKC would finish 41-41 on the year. That would be a good season, right?
- I like playing this game: Last year, win No. 4 came Dec. 31. This year, Nov. 11. Improvement.
- Notice how the last three games, Durant and Green’s minutes have been down a bit? Durant logged 36 and Green just 29 Wednesday. That’s a good thing.
- For those that didn’t hear: Westbrook suffered a minor little ankle sprain and was fine. He was cleared to re-enter but obviously didn’t. I assume he’ll play Friday.
Two things are most satisfying about this win: 1) The Thunder made key plays down the stretch and outscored the Clippers 17-10 in the fourth. Instead of folding and not closing, Durant hit a big shot, the team got a big stop and they sealed it up. And 2) Harden and Ibaka played some crucial minutes and played them well. That type of stuff will be big in the long run in terms of this team’s maturation. All in all, it’s a good win on the road, where OKC is now 2-2 after being just 8-33 all of last year away from home.
A day off and OKC heads to take on The Master in San Antonio Friday Saturday night.
On Ibaka I don't care if he fouls in 10 min every game as long he reaks
havoc will he in there. If I were Brook I would tell him i am giving
you 10 min swat everything you see. I don't care if you foulout,goal tend,or what just be as beast!!!!!
PS Did any body see the video were Kobe got the Dream to show him post
move that why he the best.(An I'm a Kobe Hater). We need to ask the Dream to work with Ibaka them both coming from the mother land and all
That would be real cool.
Peace!!!!!
@Chas
He's definitely miserable there; remember, it was supposed to be him and Elton Brand, teaming up to take the Clips to the playoffs, but Brand bailed right after Davis signed. BD basically mailed in last year, and if the Clips don't pick it up before Griffin gets healthy and gets his legs under him, he'll do it again this year.
As for last night, we're 4-4 and once again we won a game that we absolutely would have lost last year. Very encouraging.
I thought it was really funny that B. Davis is so easy to piss off. I don't think he likes anybody on that team and became a black hole in the second half.
The bench had their best game of the year IMO, James Harden is slow but he knows how to set up his teammates. He's having a very hard time finishing anything, he's over 50% from 3pt range but still has a bad overall FG%. His effort on defense was also better.
I liked Serge Ibaka's energy but it's not worth a whole lot if he's fouling that much. He reminds me a lot of Tyrus Thomas, but less BBIQ which is sort of frightening.
OKC does not get a lot of easy baskets it seems.
@The DON
One problem I have noticed about interior defense is someone gets beat on the outside and the interior guys step out so when the shot is missed, there is room in the middle for the rebound.
yeah, we do have mullens and ibaka and who knows how they will turn out.
Anyway i also looked up royces prediction back when the schedule came out and he expected 3-7 or 4-6 start, we have a chance at beating that and being 5-5 or 6-4
@f5alcon
Centers also take longer to develop, typically. Honestly, if we feel like we really need a better center, our best bet is finding one sitting on the bench somewhere that we can either sign or trade for. imo
it is better for us to draft the center last, they break down easier and have less good years, so its better to have all the other pieces in place first, plus last year would have been a disaster with watson running the point all year
Man our perimeter defense has been very good this year. The only problem is the hole in the middle (defensively), as it seems that our opponents are constantly getting their hands on the ball around the basket with tip-ins, etc.
Just imagine if we shore up the middle, we'd be so good. I am hoping Ibaka fills that hole. He showed some great flashes last night.
we had this argument in the summer...rubio/thabo/durant/green/lopez or i guess now you could swap rubio with evans. Who cares, Presti is gonna land us a nice center sooner or later
We wouldn't have taken Jennings first anyways. From what I know of him he's more of a "me first" Marbury, Francis, AI type than a team first guy. Plus he was what the 4th rated PG on the board. He's turned out better than expected but we wouldn't have taken him at 3.
@thunder
Yea that would be scary... and if we took Jennings this year.... we could have
Jennings
Thabo
Durant
Green
Lopez
Pretty sick.... but you can't be upset with how it turned out. Our young core is great and we should just focus on the pieces we have. Every franchise would love to have a redo here or there, but there have not been any detrimental mistakes so far. So you've got to be happy... We are even a bandwagon team...
I listened to the first half on the radio, and went to sleep after that, so I didn't have a real good idea of how things were going, aside from we were missing a lot of shots. Based on the box score, though, this is a game the bench won for us. That's awesome. I'm not sure our bench won us any games last year.
Russ going out was the last thing I saw before the Nyquil kicked in. Nice recap everyone. Did you see the lead from the ESPN recap?
LOS ANGELES -- Kevin Durant's deft scoring touch, including the winning jumper with 38 seconds to go, and Oklahoma City's usual dose of defense proved too much.
"...usual dose of defense..." I love it!
Also saw this gem:
sportsguy33:
"The Zombies coaching staff spent a combined 225 dollars on their suits tonight. Great sale at Casual Male in OKC apparently."
Sorry Scott and Mo, but that's good stuff. Haha.
Bill Simmons was at the game last night:
sportsguy33:
"Etan Thomas' next poem is going be called, "I just spent this timeout staring at the Clipper Cheerleaders."
Lol.
Royce, another stat to add: 2nd road win last year was Jan 10, game 38.
Defensive Details
Defensive MVP – Kevin Durant (+12)
Kevin is really using his length more and more as his career goes forward. Last year, he would be asleep when his man didn’t have the ball. Now, he is anticipating passes and using his long arms to get steals. He is also pursuing better, so he isn’t out of position nearly as much. Only one mistake tonight – Keep it up Kevin!!!
James Harden (+9)
Easily, his best defensive game of the year. He only made one mistake (allowing Baron Davis to get past him). He also had two deflections a block and a steal. My favorite play? Well, the Thunder missed on the offensive end, and Harden attempted to pick off an outlet pass intended for Baron Davis. Harden missed it. Rather than hang his head and/or jog back, Harden raced back to make up for his gamble. He covered up Baron Davis, then switched over to cover Telfair after Telfair got the ball from Davis. What a super effort!
Nick Collison (+8)
Serge Ibaka (+4)
Glad to see him get some time. I liked it when he closed out a perimeter shooter (Al Thornton).
Nenad Krstic (+4)
Played solid defense on Kaman, around whom the Clippers offense was centered.
Etan Thomas (zero)
Kevin Ollie (-4)
Jeff Green (-4)
A clunker of an effort. He fell into his old habits of being listless on the weakside.
Thabo Sefolosha (-5)
The worst game I’ve seen him play. Harden was doing well on both ends, so I wasn’t even a little upset when Thabo remained on the bench in the 4th quarter.
Russell Westbrook (-6)
thunder :russ is my boy and i love his style.pause.but going back to the draft day where would thunder be today if we had taken brook lopez. we would have an up and coming on the doors of elite center along with durant.scary.
I too was hoping on draft day last year that we would draft Lopez but I think we made out just fine because Presti was able to steal Krstic from Europe. Lopez is obviously better, but Krstic is pretty good too.
So would you rather have Westbrook + Krstic, or Lopez? I'll take what we currently have.
A win is a win. By the way, we play at San Antonio on Saturday night, not Friday. I know because I have my tickets right in front of me. Can't wait!
russ is my boy and i love his style.pause.
but going back to the draft day where would thunder be today if we had taken brook lopez. we would have an up and coming on the doors of elite center along with durant.scary.
I gotta say this game may be the best game all season for Westbrook. Yes, you heard me correctly. Not the best he'll play obviously, but the best for his learning. He got to see, how a backup PG who is months away from 40 or close to it I suspect and a backup rookie SG take control of the game not by talent-though Harden will win games by talent in the future- but merely by controling tempo and smart decisions. He also saw a coach who was not afraid to bench him in LA his hometown in front of his family and friends. All this and Russ still cheers enthusiastically at the end for Ibaka. All of this reinforces what a successful PG needs in terms of mentality: be a leader. A leader does whatever it takes to win and make his teammates successful. And for this game, that meant being on the bench. Now imagine if he's able to add this mentality and its getting there to his growing talent.
you also have to love that harden leads the league in ast/to ratio by a huge margin
Try international League pass
It's great to see Ibaka play, its amazing he is only 19, played overseas, and yet isn't as raw as most would expect. Its also nice to see Durant getting rest before the 4th quarter the last 2 nights, I think that is why he is playing better in the 4th, as opposed to last week when he was gassed and just looked exhausted.
Starting lineup +0 in 12 minutes.
Has anyone noticed how high Harden's assist ratio is? 30.4. Thats literally more than SIX times his turnover ratio. That statistic shows the value of Harden to this team. Also significant, over 50% from deep on 2 per game. The thunder are dying for a player that can consistently set up others and stretch the D, and it seems like Harden just might fit the bill. Its only two weeks into the season, but it seems like Presti's draft pick has the potential to cure the offensive issues. Brooks is going to have problems all season deciding between the value of Thabo's D and Harden's offense.
i think nights like this are why he is "jet zero" just flying out of control and missing WIDE open layups, he needs to get a cool name for nights when he does extremely well like "sedan 10" steady and efficient with like 10 assist
@Vince
Very well said.
And Westbrook is fine. He could've come back in but Brooks held him out.
The thing with a guy like Westbrook -- and we all played with this guy, and I was this guy -- is that when the team struggles, he wants to fix it himself. (Remember that old cliche, "There's no ten-point play?") And Westbrook has been good enough through that he's probably been able to get by going 1-on-3 every time his team gives up a run.
But he can't anymore, and I think his biggest weakness is that he still does that. That's part of why he looks so good in some games (like the opener, where we controlled the entire game and Russ played completely under control) and so bad in others (like tonight, when the team and the offense didn't quite have it early and he tried to do it himself and played out of control). It's a big weakness, and PG is the worst position at which to have that mentality, but hopefully if he can learn to temper his competitiveness he'll make a noticeable jump.
Ugly win is still a win. Although Kaman still wins the ugly contest. What is Westbrook's status?