Thunder Defeats Pistons on Solid Effort from OK3

The Oklahoma City Thunder continued its winning ways on Saturday afternoon in Detroit, scoring its seventh-straight win on a 121-108 victory over the Pistons. The OK3 of Russell Westbrook, Paul George and Carmelo Anthony combined for 78 points on 27/56 (48.2 percent) shooting, pacing the Thunder to a victorious effort.

Despite winning the game, the Thunder lost Andre Roberson to what appeared to be a very serious non-contact injury in the third quarter. The team will now wait to find out the exact severity of the injury, but should be prepared to move forward without perhaps its best defender.

Full Highlights:

The win moves the Thunder to 29-20 on the season ahead of tomorrow’s 5:00 PM CT showdown with the Philadelphia 76ers. Now for some notes on today’s win.

Numbers

48.4: The Thunder shot 48.4 percent from the floor, compared to 46.4 for Detroit.

42.4: Despite the Pistons coming in as a top five three-point shooting team, the Thunder went 14/33 (42.4 percent) compared to 12/33 (36.4) for Detroit.

73.9: The Thunder went 17/23 from the free throw line, good for 73.9 percent. Not great — but somehow still better than season average.

43-43: Dead even on the boards — 43-all. That included a 13-13 deadlock on the offensive glass.

10: Just 10 turnovers for the Thunder, which will do. The OKC defense forced 17 Detroit turnovers and scored 24 points off of them.

The OK3

It was a nice day for Russell Westbrook, Paul George and Carmelo Anthony. Their final stat lines:

Westbrook: 31 pts, 11 reb, 13 ast, 13/22 FG, 3/4 3P, +20

George: 26 pts, 3 stl, 6/13 FG, +28

Melo: 21 pts, 5 reb, 2 stl, 8/21 FG, +25

Westbrook recorded his 15th triple-double of the season, Paul George had a great line on an efficient effort, and Carmelo Anthony surpassed the 25,000-point mark for his career. Not a bad day for the Thunder’s star trio.

Andre Roberson’s Injury

Despite the Thunder winning the game, the team perhaps lost the war as Andre Roberson was injured on what appeared to be a very serious non-contact injury in the third quarter. The game was stopped, Dre was loaded onto a stretcher, and then carted out as his teammates watched in disbelief.

The moment the injury occurred:

It hasn’t been determined exactly what went wrong here but it doesn’t figure to be good news. The Thunder will now wait and see what’s wrong with its best defender. If it’s as serious as it appeared, words cannot describe how big of a loss that will ultimately be for OKC.

The first returns are not good:

Highlights

Carmelo Anthony surpassed the 25,000-point mark at 8:30 in the third quarter on this free throw:

Notes

PG13’s Thieving Ways. Paul George recorded three steals and became the first player in the NBA to record 100+ steals this season. He leads the league in that statistic and is certainly among the favorites to be crowned the NBA’s Defensive Player of the Year.

Steven Adams. 13 points and 7 rebounds for Steven Adams — with just three of those boards coming on the offensive end. That’s not a bad day, just not up to his recent standards. He wrapped up the day as a +28.

Terrance Ferguson. Terrance Ferguson logged 23 minutes, scoring 6 points on 2/6 shooting. In the wake of Andre Roberson’s injury, the 19-year-old just became infinitely more valuable. He should be expecting a sudden increase in minutes, perhaps a permanent spot in the starting lineup, should Roberson’s injury be as serious as it appeared.

The Other Guys. The Pistons got 12 points and 13 rebounds out of Andre Drummond. Tobias Harris led them in scoring with 21 points. Four bench players reached double-figures: Reggie Bullock (16 pts), Ish Smith (15 pts), Boban (14 pts), and Luke Kennard (11 pts).

Back in action tomorrow at 5:00 PM versus the 76ers. All attention now turns to Andre Roberson’s injury — more to come on that.