Thunder journal,
The crowd knew what was coming before he stepped on the court.
“Starting at guard ...” the announcer began, and a burst of cheers welcomed Russell Westbrook back.
That was before the Thunder sputtered to a 131-120 loss to the Kings on Sunday, despite a 32-point, eight-assist and 12-rebound performance from Westbrook in his first game back from offseason arthroscopic knee surgery. Now Oklahoma City has three days to figure out how to how to take advantage of his return before Boston comes to town.
“I think it’s important, “Thunder coach Billy Donovan
said of being able to practice with Westbrook in and Dennis Schroder with the second unit. “We really haven’t had much time to be able to do that. That’s not an excuse.”
Westbrook slid into a familiar lineup on Sunday, but his return caused a ripple effect. Schroder, who the Thunder acquired over the summer in a three-team trade for Carmelo Anthony,
came off the bench Sunday for the first time this season. The backup point guard shot 5-of-16 from the field Saturday, which at least was an improvement from his season low of 2-of-15 against the Clippers on Friday.
For the first time this season, the Thunder also got to see what Westbrook and Schroder could be on the floor together.
“It’s a work in progress,” Donovan said, “... To be honest with you, that was probably one of the few times — we had a few times in practice, where it was controlled — where we had those guys out there together to give them some concepts and some things to play out of. I actually thought they played pretty well together. The biggest thing is we moved the ball. We got to the paint. We kicked it out. I thought we generated good shots.”
The Thunder also went through the growing pains of trying out a small lineup that Donovan said they hadn’t worked on much due to Westbrooks’ injury. About four minutes into the third quarter, Donovan subbed out Patrick Patterson for Schroder.
“We went small, and we played Paul (George) at the four spot because (Nemanja) Bjelica was out there, just trying to change it up a little bit,” Donovan said. “It didn’t go well early when that lineup was out there.”
The Kings pulled ahead to a 17-point lead, their largest of the game, before the Thunder could find a rhythm in that lineup.
Three-point woes
After Sunday’s game, in which the Thunder made just nine of their 39 3-point attempts, Oklahoma City sat dead last in the league in 3-point shooting percentage (23.9 percent). Despite their lack of success from beyond the arc, the Thunder continued to take enough threes to put them in the top 10 (No. 8, 36.3 attempts per game.)
“I think we have to take good shots,” Donovan said when asked if he was confident that his team could buck the trend. “As a coach, you’re always looking at what’s the quality of shots, who’s taking them, where are they taking them from, how contested are they, is there somebody else open? We weren’t perfect for 48 minutes, but I thought we generated really good looks.
Abrines set to return
Alex Abrines (mouth contusion) is expected to return to practice Tuesday, per the Thunder. He grabbed a rebound and recorded two assists before leaving Sunday’s game in the second quarter due to injury. The shooting guard was 2-of-7 from three the game before, a 108-92 loss to the Clippers in which the Thunder shot just 21.2 percent from downtown and 35.8 percent from the floor.