Thunder sinks Clippers
OKC notched its first win in five games, beating LA, 120-111.
Rather than leave it in his hands, Russell Westbrook gave it to the previous night’s empty hand.
The 2016-17 MVP could have kept it, but it was Paul George’s night. Or Dakari Johnson’s, if you’re in a sharing mood. With the Thunder ahead by just two points late, Westbrook swung the ball to George, who waited for Carmelo Anthony to flash open in the right post before delivering a pinpoint pass.
For pockets of the Thunder’s 120-111 win against the Clippers on Friday, there was ball movement, sharing and the halfcourt offense that OKC had been missing in its four-game, 14-quarter slump.
When there wasn’t, there was George, attacking for a season-best 42 points, or dishing to
Anthony for a key bucket in one of those clutch finishes OKC struggled in through 11 games.
Westbrook finished with 22 points, eight rebounds and three assists in a measured fourth quarter. When he returned in the fourth in Thursday’s 102-94 loss to Denver, the game slowly unraveled via an abundance of isolation from him and Anthony.
Now, the Thunder’s halfcourt offense remains disjointed and won’t be cured in a win against an undermanned Clippers team missing two starters (Patrick Beverley, Danilo Galinari). Some of the halfcourt issues were also starting to bleed into the second unit.
From the onset, Westbrook was pushing the tempo, starting 3-of-3 from the field — all on drives on the fast break that electrified the crowd, thus the halfcourt offense momentarily didn’t come into question when the Thunder shot out to an emphatic first-quarter start. Westbrook’s speed was the answer.
But after Andre Roberson scored a putback on a missed Westbrook dunk to put the Thunder ahead by 14 with 4:16 left in the first quarter, the Clippers ripped off an 18-3 run to close the period.
Over the last two games, Thunder coach Billy Donovan has shifted from Anthony playing as the primary scorer in the second unit to George. It bore fruit in a game bogged down by the officials calling 59 personal fouls.
The Thunder — who entered 25th in the NBA in free throw attempts with 19 per game — shot 40 as a team, with George making 12-of-15.
The fouling was so rampant, that a fan could be heard complaining about it in the third quarter: “Stop calling fouls. This game’s got a great flow to it.”
After the first part of the blurted-out statement, Clippers coach Doc Rivers turned around, pointed a few rows back into the Chesapeake Energy Arena crowd and said “I agree.” The second sentence was pure sarcasm.
But Rivers had no complaints a few minutes later, when the Thunder’s lead was lost as soon as George left the floor.
A 20-point Thunder advantage evaporated to single digits in the third quarter, as the Thunder’s smothering defense started to put the Clippers on the line. George, who entered as the NBA’s leader in deflections and steals per game, was at the head of not just the Thunder’s offense, but it’s defense one night after he received only one shot in the fourth quarter.