Thunder roll on in Boston, 130-109
BOSTON — It’s two games.
Two really, really good games.
But two games.
Here’s something that really stood out to me in this one: The Thunder went up 20 early in the third, and then Durant airmailed a 3. Westbrook forced a drive. Then Westbrook missed an unbalanced transition 3 with no rebounders. In the meantime, the Celtics went on a 7-0 run to cut it to 13. It felt like the Thunder were starting the implode again.
Because that’s what they’ve often done in those games. They go for the kill in the third quarter, trying to hit the dagger instead of playing on. They lose their identity and just start firing away, swinging wildly for the haymaker. After that Westbrook 3 and the Celtics scored, Donovan called timeout, and guess what: The Thunder responded by outscoring Boston 31-17 over the final seven minutes of third.
“Coming out of the timeout,” Donovan said, “I was like, ‘Hey listen, we’ve got to take care of the basketball, we’ve got to run offense and the third thing is we’ve got to play really good defense and rebound and not allow second shots.’ If you do those things, that generally stops runs. And I think some of the previous games where teams have made big runs on us, it’s been because of those things.
“The big part is when you want to quiet a run is we’ve got to settle down and run some offense,” he said. “The ball’s going have to change hands, we’re going to have to attack the basket, we’re going to have to put pressure on the basket and whatever you get from that you’re going to have to live with, but not testing those things sometimes you’re living like, ‘Oh wow, great shot, glad it went in,’ one of those things. But I think they’re getting better at maybe seeing that and I think Russell and Kevin have done a really good job with that.”
Now, the bench messed around in the fourth and let a 30-point lead slip down 15, which, funny thing is, the Thunder led by 17 with seven minutes to go in LA, but behind Enes Kanter’s offensive rebounding and a few other buckets from various places, they closed out a very strong road win.
Kevin Durant was excellent: 28 points, seven rebounds and nine assists. Russell Westbrook, also so: 24 points, five rebounds and five assists. Kanter beasted for 17 and 12 in 26 minutes, Randy Foye kept hitting shots, Serge Ibaka knocked some down and overall, the Thunder played a complete, rounded game.
The message from the team over the last few weeks has been to not panic, to not worry, and just focus on the fact they like the way they’ve been playing in spite of the losing. Whether that’s a smart thing is debatable, because winning and losing is kind of the definitive answer to how you performed that night, but these couple games back it up somewhat. They have shown some growth, and have certainly played much, much better. They’ve shown what they’re capable of.
And over the next 14 games, if they’re going to start peaking for the postseason, maybe they knew what they were doing all along.
NOTES:
- Entering the fourth quarter tonight, the Thunder had only five turnovers. Entering the fourth on Monday against the Blazers, they had six. OKC led by 27 after three tonight and 30 after three on Monday. I don’t believe this to be coincidental.
- Without Jae Crowder, the Celtics went with Marcus Smart on Durant. It seemed to make sense in theory, with Durant sometimes having trouble with smaller pesky guys getting into his handle. The Thunder wisely took advantage of it with KD on the block, and he scored the first seven and forced the Celtics to adjust.
- I thought Andre Roberson played an excellent game. He chased Avery Bradley everywhere and was active defensively, especially in the third quarter.
- Can I just say how much I love Brad Stevens? I think he’s awesome. Truly. BUT, the overwhelming slurping of him gets on my nerves a bit, especially when you see the double standard going on. I don’t believe the Celtics scored out of a timeout a single time tonight. One in particular, right before halftime, Westbrook stole the inbound and nearly hit a 3 at the buzzer with 2.8 seconds left. Imagine that would’ve been Donovan, or some other coach without a strong reputation on the internet. They would’ve been killed for it. But since Stevens is a darling, no one even notices.
- Dion Waiters returned tonight and played just 10 minutes. Donovan had said he was probably going to kind of ease him back in, and while Waiters definitely showed a few signs of rust, he did hit his first 3, a deep one, and pointed to the sky after it. “That was for him,” he said, in reference to his brother Demetrius Pinckney.
- The Thunder just murdered the Celtics on the glass. Like bad. They ended up with 16 offensive rebounds, 12 of them coming in the second half.
- STRONG heckle tonight late in the fourth quarter: “OKC will never get to the FINALS… because they SUCK! That’s factual SHIT!”
- Randy Foye? Alright then.
- You really don’t realize just how fat Jared Sullinger is until you see him in person.
- Seriously, the greatest rivalry in the NBA is Jared Sullinger versus his shorts.
- Cameron Payne was still in the rotation. He played some solid minutes, made some nice passes and hit a few garbage time shots.
- Boston fans — and media — are growing incredibly thirsty for Durant. They chanted “Come to Boston!” in the third quarter. Durant shrugged it off. “I didn’t even hear that man. Promise. I couldn’t understand what they were saying. They said that? I don’t know. No thoughts, really. I’m just happy we won.”
Next up: At the 76ers on Friday
