Apr 10, 2015 3 min read Featured

Thunder handle the Kings, 116-103

The Thunder won.

That seems to be the most important thing to note.

It wasn’t pretty. It wasn’t entertaining. It wasn’t fun. It wasn’t encouraging.

But they did win.

The quick and dirty of the game was the Thunder led the Kings all night, let them come back from nine down a number of times, once enough to tie it 72-72 late in the third. Anthony Morrow hit a couple 3s, Russell Westbrook executed crunchtime, and the Thunder closed out a team that they’re supposed to be much better than.

Thing is, though, I saw nothing tonight that was all that positive going forward. Nothing about this game screams being back or figuring things out. They just were able to play a little better than a bad team missing its three best players. The defense was up and down and there was no real killer instinct to put away a bad team.

Scott Brooks saw it a little differently. He called it a “good win” and felt like they played well.

“Defensively, we were pretty good,” Brooks said. Offensively we were really good. We didn’t turn the ball over. Lot of good action, lot of good activity. On to the next game for us.”

Maybe it’s just good to get back on the winning track and feeling not terrible about yourselves. That is a good thing. Because a loss would’ve been catastrophic, to the degree it would’ve had some carry over. So it’s good that didn’t happen. Still, I just didn’t come away thinking all that highly of the Thunder’s chances suddenly.

The Pelicans won, so with both teams having three to play and the tiebreaker residing in New Orleans, the Thunder pretty much have to go to Indiana and win. And what the fear is, if the same Thunder team that played tonight takes this on the road, they aren’t winning in Indiana.

NOTES:

One thing I can’t shake: The Thunder needed 38 minutes from Russell Westbrook tonight to hold off a bad Kings team. The Pelicans coasted past the Suns despite Anthony Davis playing limited minutes because of a throat contusion (?). Not a positive sign, I’d say.

Westbrook was solid, but not spectacular: 27 points, five rebounds, 10 assists. He posted up Sacramento’s smaller guards a lot, which was effective, and did a very nice job in crunchtime making good decisions with Enes Kanter in the pick-and-roll.

After a lackluster performance against the Spurs, Kanter bounced back nicely against the weak Sacto frontline with 25 and six rebounds.

Nick Collison definitely helped in a lot of ways, most specifically in that the Thunder had four functional bigs to use. Brooks only played three, but Collison combining with either Kanter or Steven Adams kept at least one solid defensive big on the floor at all times. And it was clear how influential Collison is in calling out the defensive coverages.

I can’t decide if Dion Waiters played well, or average. He had 22 on 9-19 shooting with six rebounds, four assists and three steals. But he also did a lot of ball stopping, a lot of long 2 taking, a lot of poor choice-making. And Ben McLemore worked him over pretty good at times. Waiters made shots, and he’s quietly shooting well from 3 his last 10 games (13-27), but it’s hard not to wonder how much of that is fool’s gold.

Steven Adams had four blocks. I can’t be sure, but I think three came with Collison on the floor with him. Just that ability to stay home on the weakside more enabled him to be more aggressive protecting the rim. Also, Jason Thompson, Derrick Williams and Carl Landry.

Anthony Morrow was again very influential off the bench: 19 points on 7-17 shooting, 5-10 from 3 in 26 minutes.

Only seven turnovers. That’s good. Four came from Westbrook.

Brooks: “If we don’t make the playoffs, I’ll be very disappointed in myself. But not in our team.”

I like Ray McCallum.

She wasn’t quite Red Panda, but the pot-spinning, chair-flipping halftime show was solid. I’ll give her a chance.

Couple rotational changes, if only for tonight: Andre Roberson started in place of Kyle Singler, who didn’t enter the game until late third. With Nick Collison back, Mitch McGary was relegated to mop up duty.