Morrow May Be Back Tonight
By Randy Renner
Friday night Jeremy Lamb returned after missing time with a strained lower back and tonight (cross your fingers) the Thunder may get free agent signee Anthony Morrow back on the court for the first time in the regular season.
The Thunder would love to get Morrow back for two reasons, number one it's great just to have another guy healthy again and number two the Thunder can use the offensive punch that Morrow should be able to offer.
Normally when the Kings come to town Thunder fans can count on a win but that's certainly not the case this time around and it might not even be the case if the Thunder were operating at or at least near full strength.
The Kings are off to a very fast start, coming in at 5-1, the Thunder are 1-5 so it's records reversal for these two teams.
The Thunder offense, without Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook and Morrow, has struggled to score enough points to win. The team is averaging just 90.5 points a game and hasn't made it to the 90 point mark in three straight games.
Last season OKC averaged 106.2 points so the dozen to maybe 15 points the Thunder can hopefully expect from Morrow will come in very handy.
By the way the Thunder haven't scored less than 90 in four straight games since their first season here back in 2008-09.
The depleted Thunder will be facing a Sacramento team that's off to its best start since 1999-00 and is among the highest-scoring teams in the league at 105.5 points per game.
DeMarcus Cousins leads the way with 24.2 points and 11.8 rebounds, while Rudy Gay is at 22.2 points. Darren Collison is averaging career highs of 15.2 points and 6.2 assists.
The Kings won their fifth straight Friday, 114-112 in double overtime at Phoenix on Gay's go-ahead jumper with 1:07 left in the second extra period.
The Thunder have won 10 straight games in this series and 16 of the last 17 against SacTown but of course those games all featured Durant and most of them also included Westbrook.
Cousins was called the best big man in the NBA by Thunder center Kendrick Perkins the other day and he will be a big focus of the Thunder big men. OKC's bigs were able to control Zach Randolph and Marc Gasol from Memphis Friday night and that same strategy will likely be employed against Cousins.
But Gay could be another matter. Andre Roberson and Perry Jones are both still out of the Thunder lineup and one or both might have been used to slow down the Kings small forward.
Now that duty may fall to Lance Thomas and Morrow too if he can play.
The Thunder may catch a break tonight because Cousins is a bit hampered by a sprained thumb (he is expected to play though) and Gay has had an illness ( virus or flu-like symptoms) he may not be able to play at all.
We'll update you here on the site and on Twitter about Morrow's status as we get close to game time.