Thunder Use Big 4th Quarter To Ice Blazers
By Randy Renner, Senior Writer
Thunder superstar Russell Westbrook once again took things over in the 4th quarter but he had plenty of help this time as OKC rode a 61.1 percent shooting effort in the final 12 minutes to a 105-99 win over the Portland Trail Blazers.
Westbrook finished with a game-high 42 points on 16-for-34 shooting adding four rebounds and eight assists. He hit just one three but it was an ankle-breaking, step-back, doozy with 1:18 to play putting his team up 100-93 and all but sealing the outcome.
Al-Farouq Aminu was guarding Westbrook at the time. Russ faked a drive toward the basket and Aminu went for it actually running away from Westbrook for a moment before the Thunder point guard, now wide-open, launched.
Of course the shot went in and a sellout crowd inside Chesapeake Energy Arena erupted while Westbrook pointed toward Aminu yelling “where you going?”
“Russell created space off the dribble tonight,” head coach Billy Donovan pointed out. “When he does that and he gets into the mid-range area especially, he’s a terrific shooter.”
The Thunder struggled with their offense in the early going shooting 33.3 percent in the 1st quarter and 28.6 percent in the 2nd. Many of the misses were layups. The Thunder had 32 paint points in the first half on just 16-for-38 shooting down there (42.1 percent).
Donovan was just happy his guys didn’t let their offensive woes bleed over to the defensive end.
“If you don’t play defense like we did with what else was happening you could be down 20-25 points. I really felt we defended well the whole game.”
The Thunder held Portland to just 40.2 percent for the game and 35.6 percent in the second half. Meanwhile, OKC hit 55.0 percent in the second half, scoring 59 points.
The Thunder ended up with big games from both Andre Roberson and Victor Oladipo but no one else made it into double figures.
Oladipo had 24 points and and tied a career-high with 13 rebounds, he also blocked a couple of shots and had two steals.
Roberson tied his season-high with 14 points on 6-for-8 shooting and pulled down 11 rebounds. He had three steals while playing strong defense on several of the Trail Blazers shooters.
“Dre was really great,” Donovan said. “He was really, really good and the rest of the backcourt guys were terrific too. Dre guarded a lot of different guys tonight.”
The Thunder seem to have righted the ship after struggling for three games in the absence of Enes Kanter. Now comes a quick trip to Indiana for a game with the Pacers Monday night before coming back home for two of the most anticipated home games of the season, LeBron and the Cavs on Thursday night and KD and the Warriors on Saturday night.