Thursday Bolts – 3.8.12

John Rohde on Westbrook: “After receiving the “T,” Westbrook continued to argue with Foster, who easily could have ejected the two-time All-Star with another technical. Westbrook was still emotional as teammates met him at midcourt and finally steered him toward the bench. OKC coach Scott Brooks routinely sends in a substitute for Westbrook around the two-minute mark of the third quarter, but rather than taking out Westbrook so he could regain his composure, Brooks opted to leave him in the game.”

From Elias: “Russell Westbrook (31 points), Kevin Durant (30) and James Harden (30) gave the Suns more than they could handle as the Thunder topped Phoenix on Wednesday night. Oklahoma City’s “big three” were the first trio of NBA teammates to each score 30 points in one game this season and they were only the second threesome of teammates to do that in franchise history, joining Dale Ellis (37), Xavier McDaniel (31) and Tom Chambers (30), who turned the trick for the SuperSonics on February 26, 1988 (against Sacramento).”

ESPN Stats and Info: “Aside from the Thunder getting THREE 30-point performances on Wednesday, only TWO other players scored a point for them in their 115-104 victory. They’re just the 5th team in the past 25 seasons to score at least 115 points, getting ALL of them for just 5 players.”

Interesting post at Hickory High on OKC’s pick-and-roll: “The Thunder may not be a conventional pick and roll team, but they remain highly successful in running it and the ensuing counters to various defenses. As the season goes on, it will be interesting to see if defenses will be able to force Oklahoma City into using Perkins, Ibaka, and Collison as scorers instead of simply screeners.”

Here’s Kate Upton’s interview from last night.

And here’s Kate Upton sitting with her Uncle Aubrey.

Mike Tokito of the Oregonian on the MVP race: “If Minnesota can get into the playoffs, it would cement Love as a legitimate MVP candidate. His numbers already make a compelling case: He is averaging 25.4 points and 13.7 rebounds, ranking fourth and second in those categories. Love is also a player you cannot hack as he is shooting 83.4 percent at the free-throw line and leads the league in made free throws with 257.”

Eddy Rivera for TrueHoop on how much playoff experience matters: “After acquiring Kendrick Perkins at the trade deadline last season, the Thunder’s first full season with this quintuplet together has been a resounding success so far. With coaches like Gregg Popovich, George Karl, and Rick Carlisle in the Western Conference casting a shadow on Scott Brooks, Oklahoma City can only hope chemistry will trump all.”

Ryan Weisart for Valley of the Suns on smallball last night: “Second, it allowed Ibaka to remain near the rim on defense and cut off the Suns path to the basket. I understand that Gentry was responding to Thunder Coach Scott Brooks’ decision to go small in crunch-time with Westbrook, Durant, Harden, Ibaka, and Royal Ivey, but his decision to follow suit as opposed to bringing in Channing to stretch the defense and pound the glass may have been the difference down the stretch.”

SI.com’s Zach Lowe on fast point guards: “For instance: Want to know the answer to the age-old debate over who the fastest point guard in the league really is? Well, STATS can’t answer that definitely yet, since only 10 of the league’s 30 arenas have the cameras installed. But those 10 arenas feature some pretty quick point guards — Tony Parker, Russell Westbrook, Rajon Rondo, Kyle Lowry, Ricky Rubio, Brandon Jennings and the quicker-than-you-think Calderon. (John Wall, for some reason, was left out of this report). But none can touch Parker in an open sprint, at least not so far this season. Parker has reached a high speed of 20.9 miles per hour in one stretch of in-game sprinting, easily the highest speed any of these guys have registered. Rubio is next, at 19.4 miles per hour, and the rest of the crew falls into the 17 range. Chicago has not invested in the STATS system, so we only have a few games worth of data on Derrick Rose; he reached a peak speed of 17.0 miles in San Antonio last month.”