Westbrook lifts the Thunder in New Orleans, 102-91

BOX SCORE

Russ.

RUSS.

RUSSSSSSSSSSSSSS.

(OK, now the recap.)

I spent a lot of the day trying to downplay the significance of this game in my head. Sure, with consecutive games against the Pelicans, this was a big opportunity for the Thunder to gain ground, or on the flip side, a dangerous night to lose it. A loss wouldn’t end the season, but it certainly would set off the signal flares again and place an ample amount of pressure on Friday’s return game with the Pelicans.

I haven’t necessarily changed my mind just because of the result. But because of the way it happened, it definitely has the feeling that it meant a little more something than just a tally in the win column.

With Kevin Durant sitting in what could be considered the Thunder’s biggest regular season game of this campaign (to date), it was obviously going to be a challenge in New Orleans. The Pelicans have been playing well, and were fresh off ending the Hawks’ streak. It was going to take something special, something extraordinary for the Thunder to pull one out of the fire.

And Russell Westbrook delivered.

It started with 19 points in the first quarter on 8-10 shooting. He added six more in the second to have 25 on 11-15 at halftime. He came out strong in the third and entered the fourth quarter with 36 on 14-24. And then he finished things off with nine in the fourth on 4-7. A career-high tying 45 points on 18-31 shooting, plus six rebounds and six assists. It was the quintessential Westbrook game, full of unhinged fury, relentless controlled chaos, facepalming stupidity, and brilliant, breathtaking, powerful, winning basketball.

Westbrook had his mind made up. He wasn’t going to go quietly tonight. He said Durant texted him before the game and told him to lead his guys. Westbrook didn’t lead. He picked the whole damn 15-man roster up and put it on his back.

As fantastic as Westbrook was, though, what really did it for the Thunder was the defensive end. The game was back and forth with the Pelicans going up 91-89 with 5:39 left on a Ryan Anderson 3. The problem to that point was an inability to string together stops (and rebounds), leaving decent offense to do nothing more than to just keep up. But the last 5:38 of the game, the Pelicans didn’t score a single point. I kept saying it: OK, you’ve got to get a stop here. And the Thunder would. Then I’d say it again: Have to get a stop here. And they would.

But the turning point of the game actually came in the third quarter. The Pelicans were up 11 with 7:18 left in the quarter after an Eric Gordon jumper, and it was starting to slip. The grumbles were beginning and it seemed like only a matter of time before Tony Durant sent a cryptic tweet. An exchange of stops and Ibaka hit a layup set up by Westbrook, another Thunder stop, a Westbrook 3, another stop, an Ibaka jumper, another stop, an Ibaka dunk, a Ryan Anderson jumper, a Westbrook response, an Anderson 3, an Ibaka response, a stop and finally two free throws by Westbrook. Tied at 73-73 with 3:09 left. The Thunder actually finished out the quarter 4-3 (both buckets coming via Perk) to take a lead into the fourth. They turned around an 11-point deficit to a one-point lead in seven minutes. What we’ve seen from this team previously would’ve been a severe fold there. Instead, they showed a little backbone.

I’m on high alert here still, because Friday’s game could be equally deflating as this is lifting, but what we saw tonight is the reason I think you shouldn’t give up on these guys. This is who they are. This is what they’ve been the last five years. When they needed a stop, needed a play, needed a bounce back win, they’ve almost always come up with it.

I will say this, though: If this team is truly starting to turn a corner, they’ll win Friday.

NOTES:

• Westbrook had 25 at the half, and one assist. His second half? 20 points and five assists. I was worried that when he came back in the fourth he was going to try and do too much on his own. He still absolutely did, because he’s Russell Westbrook what else did you expect, but he mixed in some slick playmaking with it all. He set up Ibaka for a dunk, then Adams for another, and didn’t just dominate the ball each possession. He let his team breathe, even just a little, and it paid off. Westbrook took seven of the Thunder’s 18 shots in the fourth, but Morrow scored eight big points and Waiters had two buckets. Six different Thunderers took shots in the fourth quarter.

• My favorite play of the game from Westbrook: With the Thunder up nine with a minute left, Westbrook was torching the universe. Adams set a high ball screen, two Pelicans flashed at Westbrook knowing like everyone else in the history of man that a 3 was about to go up, except, Westbrook elevated and fired a bullet at Adams who took two steps and finished a dagger dunk. That was a play built from maturation.

• You know what’s funny to me. Actually not funny. Effing annoying actually. I saw a number of people criticize Westbrook’s game for still being too selfish and that he didn’t play smart. That he just got bailed out by some of his dumb shots going in. If Kevin Durant would’ve put in this kind of performance under the same circumstances, there would be much fawning. Westbrook carried his team. He took a lot of shots, but he did what he had to do. He played a wonderful game. Just leave it at that.

• I will say this, though: Westbrook’s last two games sum him up exceptionally well. Against the Magic, it was Distribution Russ, where he attacks with a mind to create, letting his offense come to him more naturally in the flow of the game. Like his scoring is an afterthought after the other options aren’t there. Tonight was the opposite. It was Attack Russ, where he was the first, second, third and fourth option. The last two games are a great example of why he’s so polarizing. I don’t know which game was actually better. And you can see why he doesn’t just settle into Distribution Russ, because sometimes, Attack Russ has to show up.

• Dion Waiters didn’t have a great game, but a good enough one. He had 12 on 6-14, and came up with two big plays in the fourth. First a steal of Tyreke Evans and a layup (why does he make layups so hard?) and then a little step-back jumper in the lane to really dagger the Pelicans, putting OKC up seven with 2:45 left.

• You know who I thought also had a pretty good game? *braces self* …Scott Brooks. He made a smart move going with Steven Adams, not Ibaka, on Anthony Davis to start the game. He limited Andre Roberson’s minutes to 12. He injected a little life into the team to start the fourth with Ish Smith waterbugging around. His closing lineup was on point: Westbrook, Waiters, Morrow, Ibaka and Adams. He played Perk what felt like just the right amount. He managed foul trouble with his two centers. He put together a nice game plan to slow the Pelicans’ pick-and-roll game, bringing an extra helper on the weakside so as to eliminate lob opportunities for Davis. He put Davis in darn near every single pick-and-roll, keeping him out of the paint and with Monty Williams playing Anderson instead of Asik, it left a ton of space inside (66 paint points for OKC). Oh, who am I kidding, the only reason the Thunder won was because Westbrook had a great game and Brooks still is terrible. That’s what I’m supposed to say, right?

• There’s been a lot of hyperbole thrown around about Serge Ibaka this season, but there’s no denying how bad he was tonight, and just overall against the Pelicans.

• I wrote that sentence at halftime tonight. Ibaka had zero points at the time. He scored 11 in the third, and all 13 of his points in the second half, to go with six rebounds and six blocks in 42 minutes. He was massive in this one.

• Both Perk and Adams did an excellent job on Anthony Davis. He still finished with 23 on 9-21 shooting, plus eight rebounds, but he was a non-factor on the offensive glass and really had to work for anything he got. The plan was to bully the slim Davis, and that’s what Bunk and McNulty did.

• This was a common refrain I got tonight: “Kinda bittersweet. So good to get the much-needed win, but that’s so unsustainable and doesn’t really address any of the issues.” Have some of you ever even watched this team? This is why their so tantalizingly great. Um, duh, Westbrook scoring 45 on 18-31 shooting isn’t going to become a nightly thing, but the competitive spirit and playmaking in tight spots is. The Thunder have the edge on so many teams in the league because when their best players play well, they’re great. That’s why you want those kind of guys. Because they can win games like this almost on their own.

• I get it, though. You’re skeptical. You’ve been burned one too many times this season and it’s hard to really buy completely in. It’s like setting yourself up for massive disappointment so you’re keeping the optimism at tepid levels. But just don’t mistake the way the Thunder played tonight as some kind of a fluke. That’s what they’re supposed to be.

• That Perk cherry pick in the third quarter was amazing. I felt an incredible amount of anticipation with each step he neared the basket. Everything was in play from an airballed layup to him just falling completely down.

• Westbrook yelled “AND 1!” approximately 2,000 times tonight.

• The Thunder won this game with only shooting 11 free throws. (The Pelicans only got 13.)

• Reggie Jackson was absolutely awful for most of the first half, then woke up attacking the basket twice for a couple buckets. He played an OK second half, but still, why the long step-back jumpers? One play sticks out: He got Anderson on a switch in the third, and there was plenty of space on the left wing with no rim protector waiting in the paint. Instead of attacking Anderson, Jackson took two dribbles and launched a fadeaway from 20 feet. I don’t get that.

• I like that little high weave/motion set the Thunder have been running. That’s one of the new wrinkles they’ve adding, to try and get Westbrook on the move attacking, or an option to hit a shooter on a pop. It’s a good little play.

• Tyreke Evans has a history of killing the Thunder. Tonight: 11 points on 5-20 shooting. Both Westbrook and Waiters needs to be given thumbs up for their work on him.

• This sounds weird, but the Pelicans probably missed Jrue Holiday more than the Thunder missed Durant tonight. Holiday can actually do a serviceable job guarding Westbrook, and he’s much more effective at getting the Pelicans in good offense than Evans.

• Wait, what was the call on the Pelicans at the end of the third? Pondexter started out of bounds, stepped in and stepped out again? I have no idea what happened.

• Westbrook blocking Ajinca and then screaming “GET THAT SHIT OUTTA HERE!” as loud as he could twice was pretty great.

• Play of the game was definitely Perk scoring on Quincy Pondexter and then making the “run that back” signal.

• Huge performance from Morrow, who had 14 in 34 minutes, and hit a couple big time 3s in the second half.

• This game was almost the exact opposite of how the game in OKC went against the Pelicans. Remember that one? Where Westbrook didn’t pass in the final five minutes, with OKC scoring only two points, and zero in the final three minutes.

• Reason to grow in optimism: The Thunder have been horrifically inconsistent on the road this season, and just beat a team that was 17-6 at home entering the game.

• That dumb Knicks game, though. That just paints the last two weeks with a whole other brush. Win that one and the Thunder’s last three losses would’ve been to the Hawks, Cavs and Grizzlies, all on the road, with eight wins in 11 games, and a 26-23 record. Instead, it’s seven of 11 and 25-24.

Next up: Home against the Pelicans on Friday