Thunder wake up and down the Nuggets, 122-112

Royce Young -

BOX SCORE

After 24 minutes, things looked bad. After 24 more minutes, things looked better. If only slightly.

The Thunder beat the Nuggets, popping the box score as they shot a season-high 58 percent with Russell Westbrook (30-9-12), Kevin Durant (26-5-10), Enes Kanter (21 and eight rebounds) and Serge Ibaka (19 on 9-13 shooting) all putting up eye-catching lines. In that regard, it was a decent game.

In other regards, like when weighing the Nuggets were without three of their best players and playing the second of a back-to-back while also being generally not very good, it wasn’t a very positive performance. Defensively, especially in the paint, the Thunder were poor for most of the night, and struggled on the defensive glass. Offensively, sure, they were really good, but the Nuggets had a combination of Kostas Papanikolaou, Will Barton and Kenneth Faried guarding Durant, and absolutely no one that could stay in front of Westbrook.

There is something to be said for snapping out of the first half malaise that had them down 61-53 at the break. Here’s what Durant said was the difference:

“I was aggressive, for one,” he said. “Trying score, make plays. And I think when I’m aggressive that’s sets the tone for us. So I was a little more aggressive, had a little more juice and it helped us out.”

It’s true, he scored 12 in the third on 5-8 shooting, and 17 of his 26 after halftime. Not only that, he piled up eight of his 10 assists in the final two quarters, too. So he clearly was much more intentional about attacking. He and Westbrook had 22 of the Thunder’s 27 assists, and became the first teammates since Stockton and Malone in 1996 to score at least 25 with at least 10 assists in a game, which is pretty neat. There’s also this: That’s the second time Durant and Westbrook have had a game of at least 20 and 10 assists, which is something they’d never done before a month ago against the Hawks.

“This is a rhythm game, this is a confidence game,” Durant said. “When everybody touches the ball, we play together, not worry about who gets the assist or who scores the points, then everybody feels good. Our offense is going to dictate who scores, who gets the ball, but if we play together, everybody touching it, everybody involved, this shots feel a little better leaving your hand.”

The one-word recap for this game is “meh,” because it was what it was supposed to be, a win over the Nuggets. Not all games have to be emphatic blowouts, but there certainly was a disturbing lack of urgency to start. The goal is to win, and get better, and I think in some ways the Thunder accomplished both. The defense was sloppy, but the continued steps to being a deeper offensive team is a positive.

NOTES:

  • Informed the Thunder are 8-1 when they have 25 or more assists, Durant raised an eyebrow. “I guess that’s the formula. We gotta start looking at that.”
  • Hey! Cameron Payne! Payne played eight minutes to start the second quarter. The curveball from Donovan, though: It wasn’t in place of D.J. Augustin, but alongside. And yep, Payne was effective, creating an open baseline jumper for Kanter, and a transition and-1 for Kanter.
  • Second half, Payne got the nod over Augustin, playing a handful of minutes, even hitting two corner 3s. Will he be part of the rotation permanently? Donovan was noncommittal postgame.
  • Allow me some inside baseball venting: So I went to practice on Saturday and asked Donovan a bunch of questions about how bad the second unit has been, while including the fact Payne could be a solution to some of those issues. I’m writing something about it for tomorrow, maybe Tuesday. Even though it’s not true at all because I’m not a complete narcissistic lunatic, I’m choosing to believe Donovan played Payne tonight out of spite to try and ruin my story. I’M STILL WRITING IT BILLY.
  • Side thought: You know, it may not end up being Payne over Augustin by the end. It may end up being Payne over… Waiters. Hear me out: You trade Waiters at the deadline for whatever to clear a roster spot, and sign Kevin Martin who (probably) will get bought out, if he’s not traded. Waiters is a better on-ball defender, and obviously has late clock shotmaking ability — he does, okay? — but Payne really fills in the gaps quite nicely, doing a lot of what Waiters has never successfully done, namely creating shots for others.
  • In the first half, Andre Roberson banked in a corner 3, and then did the Jordan shrug. In the second half, he hesitated so badly on a wide open 3 that he ended up traveling without even dribbling. Really a big night for him.
  • “Papanikolaou” is really fun to say. Try it for the next few minutes.
  • Enes Kanter did a poster dunk tonight.
  • Never seen an offensive interference on an alley-oop before. But Bill Kennedy called one tonight. And here’s the bad part: It wasn’t even close to being in the cylinder. To Kennedy’s credit, he saw the replay and signaled “my bad” about it.
  • KD did not buzzer clutch to end the first quarter. Almost looked eager to launch it. Possibly related: He was 3-3 shooting.
  • It hurts, but if Payne takes over for Augustin, Nick Collison may end up being the target for grumpy fans next.
  • Mike Malone had a clever workaround on pulling the Hack-A move under two minutes, by fouling Adams on the second free throw attempt. Adams made both, though.

Next up: Home against the Bucks on Tuesday