Rising above
The Thunder flew high Sunday over the Pelicans for the win, 109-104.
Carmelo Anthony stood alone, the media scrum mostly surrounding Paul George on an explosive night for the Thunder wing.
But the elder statesman Anthony may have had the wisest, most perspectivefilled words of Sunday as the Thunder snapped its three-game losing streak with a 109-104 win against the Pelicans.
“I thought tonight we took our time coming down the stretch, got the shots that we wanted,” Anthony said. “Guys (were) in position on the court to make plays, but we executed and manipulated shots that we wanted to get where I thought in the past couple of games we weren’t doing that.
“We were playing super-fast and not really understanding timescore-possession at the end of the game. I think now, tonight, we showed that we took our time, executed, ran what we wanted to run and got the shots we wanted.”
As the main ballhandler, Russell Westbrook typically holds the keys to such outcomes. The Thunder was clinging to an eightpoint lead in a game it should have been well ahead in when Westbrook jacked up a 3-pointer from the right wing with nine seconds left on the shot clock.
But Westbrook recalibrated in the final two minutes to guide the Thunder back to the No. 5 seed in the Western Conference.
Westbrook finished with his 24th tripledouble of the season — 26 points, 15 rebounds and 13 assists. Out of a timeout, he picked up a screen from Steven Adams and burst for a layup. He daggered the Pelicans with a driveand-pass to George for a 3-pointer to make it a twopossession game.
Most importantly, the Thunder finished an opponent through the frustration of not seeing its wellworked possessions always bear fruit.
“I thought we did the things coming down the stretch which in the previous games we were unable to do,” Billy Donovan said.
The Thunder’s had lategame closing issues against Boston, Portland and Denver in its three-game slump which ranged from missing free throws to not getting enough rebounds.
The Thunder’s blunder Sunday looked like it missed its chance to put the Pelicans away.
In a three-minute stretch in the third quarter in which the Pelicans went scoreless and committed three turnovers, the Thunder shot just 2-of-9 and scored only three points. After those three minutes, the Thunder looked up and only led by four points.
Packed inside those scoreless minutes, however, wasn’t a flurry of bad shots or poor decisions.
The Thunder started the second half playing the way it wants to: Creating turnovers and open 3-point looks.
“It’s good, but it’s expected of us to get those open shots as well,” Adams said. “If you execute well enough, if anyone takes a wide-open shot, you generally as a team feel pretty good.
“As a coach, from a coaches’ perspective, he’ll be quite happy with that shot.”
To help OKC, the Pelicans turned the ball over 18 times in the first 30 minutes while Most Valuable Player candidate Anthony Davis slogged through a right ankle injury.
The Thunder could have been discouraged by the flurry of misses. George finished with a teamhigh 27 points, but went through a 21-minute scoring drought before powering through a Davis foul for a basket with 59.6 seconds left in the third. George was 1-of-11 in that span after a red-hot start.
But Westbrook went back to George in the face of adversity after overcoming his own. Westbrook started 0-of-5 from the field, but after George hit him in stride with a behind-the-back pass for a dunk in the first quarter, he went 9-of-12 the rest of the way.
Westbrook payed George back for the boost with trust in the clutch. The right shot, the right play.
“Russ did a great job on a lot of those setting me up,” George said. “It is frustrating when you don’t get them to go down. I’m catching them in rhythm. I was just missing, coming up short on a couple of them. But I’ll take that.”