Thunder outlast the Magic, 139-136
You see, there was this basketball game tonight, and some stuff happened, then more stuff happened, then other stuff happened. Recap over.
Basically, the Thunder Thunder’d. New system, new coach, new whatever. This is the team we’ve watched the past five or six years, the one that’s never really out of it, the one that is capable of the stupidest things, in both senses of the word. This is the team that has Russell Westbrook and Kevin Durant, and so, so many times, that’s all that matters.
To start the fourth, the Thunder trailed by 18. They had a lackluster defensive first half and trailed by 14, but quickly got it down to six in the third. More slippage, more lapses, and the Magic held their biggest lead of the game going into the final quarter. Finally, with Billy Donovan leaning on an interesting lineup, the Thunder found their spark. Enes Kanter had nine in the first four minutes of the fourth, and the lead was down to 11. A Durant dunk, a Westbrook dunk, down to eight with six minutes left. Dion Waiters hit a 3, down to seven. Durant a 3, answering one from Elfrid Payton. A couple exchanges, and it’s still eight with three minutes left.
OKC got it to two with 1:34 left on a pair of Westbrook free throws, Payton finished a layup and D.J. Augustin hit maybe the low key biggest shot of the game, a corner 3 with the Thunder 4-on-5 as Kanter put his shoe back on to cut it to one. The Magic went back up three with 16 seconds left, but Durant found a clean look at the top of the key and tied it at 114-114. Victor Oladipo answered with a tough step back, setting the stage for Westbrook to Westbrook. With 3.9 seconds left, Westbrook pulled two big steps past halfcourt with 2.7 remaining, but naturally, he banked it home to force overtime.
The Thunder controlled the extra frame, with Westbrook scoring all nine in it, but Oladipo hit a wild contested 3 from the corner to force a second overtime. With everybody on fumes, sans Westbrook, the Thunder leaned on their two supernovas again. Still: The Magic had the ball with a chance to tie with seconds remaining, but Durant blocked both 3-point attempts to put away a stupid win.
So. The takeaway here. Westbrook and Durant scored 91 points, 62 coming after halftime. The Thunder as a team scored 86. That’s an amazing thing, and a not great thing all at once. I’m moderately, maybe not concerned, but let’s say, interested about how the Thunder went about this. It was so much of previous incarnations, with an incredible reliance on those two guys to do everything necessary for the team to win. Again, that’s what makes the Thunder, the Thunder. But that’s also what’s plagued them at different times and is what they’re trying to evolve from. They want Westbrook and Durant to still do that. They need Westbrook and Durant to still do that. Heroics are great. It’s why you want stars like this. You just don’t want to rely on them all the time.
The main point is, the Thunder are 2-0, and they clearly have some growing to do. They have the fallback of two megastars bailing them out, but if they want to get to where they want to get, they’ve got to develop at a deeper level. The defense was in shambles for the first half, but I’m not especially bothered by that. The Magic were playing with crazy energy and made a ton of shots. Things balanced out in the second half, with their shooting percentage coming all the way down from 62 at halftime to 44.3 at the end of the game.
Such is the NBA season. It’s a slog, with you finding a way through what turned into 58 minutes and picking up a win in game number two. But in this process, it’s always better to do your growing while you win, rather than the alternative.
NOTES:
- How about Donovan going with Kanter and Durant as his closing frontline, along with Waiters on the wing. I’d question it, but clearly that lineup had something working, particularly offensively as it spread the floor for Westbrook to work. Kanter fouled out late, and Donovan interchanged Serge Ibaka and Steven Adams at different times.
- Kanter, at least at first glance, appeared to be adequate defensively. He even came up with a huge stop on Nik Vucevic late in the fourth (and was called for a questionable foul on another one). Really, with as shoddy as things were in the first half, some of the Thunder’s best defense tonight was played with Kanter on the floor.
- I thought Ibaka was really poor in this one. Nevermind the open misses, but even with 12 rebounds, he was soft on the boards. His defenses was lazy at times, and he just wasn’t influential like he should be. It resulted in Donovan leaving him on the bench down the stretch for the most part, too.
- Durant (43) and Westbrook (48) combined for 91 points tonight. The most Billy Donovan’s Florida Gators scored last season: 85.
- Another: In Donovan’s final game at Florida, the Gators scored 49. Westbrook was one short of that.
- I don’t know what this Westbrook floater is, and I can’t decide if I love it or am just OK with it, but it’s certainly something he’s worked to add. It’s effective in spots, but it does seem a bit odd to let them fly from darn near the free throw line.
- This game sort of reminded me of Game 4 against the Grizzlies in 2011. Just when you thought it was over, it wasn’t. Ever.
- I think some of the defense is an adjustment to Donovan’s tweaked scheme. In the first half especially, there seemed to be plenty of confusion with some of the switching.
- My favorite play of the game was definitely Durant swinging the ball to Waiters in overtime, then telling everyone to clear out for him, Waiters going one-on-one, and catching front iron on a jumper.
- Waiters saw basically every closing minute. Anthony Morrow barely played in the second half. Some of that was a defensive thing, because of Orlando’s athletic guards, but Morrow certainly can be a weapon.
- The play right before halftime appeared to be a nice design, but what a cluster it was. First, Waiters didn’t know he was on the floor. Then, naturally, the ball found Waiters in the corner who ended up shooting one off the side of the backboard.
- Kyle Singler saw his first action, a few minutes of decent role playing. DNP-CDs for Nick Collison, Mitch McGary and Steve Novak.
- How about Steven Adams stepping up and draining two clutch free throws?
Next up: Home Sunday against the Nuggets
