Thunder 102, Portland 93
Observations, news and notes from Friday night’s game……….
* As Thunder coach Scott Brooks said, “That was a heck of a win.”
* The Oden-Durant matchup was a dud. A few more like it and it’ll be an injustice to mention Oden in the same sentence as Durant.
* Durant’s all-around game was lacking tonight for the first time in a long time. Only three rebounds and two assists.
* Russell Westbrook’s head never seemed to be in the game. He was ineffective ever since picking up his second foul with 8:17 to go in the first.
* Nick Collison was huge tonight with a season-high tying 21 points with 13 rebounds. He made all seven of his free throws and 7-of-11 shots. Collison has proven to be much more effective when he gets going on offense early. He did that tonight with nine points on 4-for-4 shooting to go with four rebounds.
* Jeff Green joked after the game about finishing one rebound shy of a double-double. “Collison took them all,” he said.
* Thunder officials said Nenad Krstic did not play tonight because of sickness.
* Brooks essentially played seven guys without Krstic. Chucky Atkins, the eighth man, got five minutes.
* What’s that say about Chris Wilcox? The excuse from Brooks for not playing him had been because you can only play so many bigs. What’s the reason in a situation like this when you’re down a big?
* Instead, Brooks threw out a funky lineup in the second quarter that included Atkins, Westbrook, Earl Watson, Kyle Weaver and Joe Smith. Go figure. They got the win, I s’pose
*Watson played well with 12 points and 11 assists, his first double-double of the season. His four turnovers were bad, however.
* The goal for the Thunder should be to hold opponents under 100 points. OKC is 7-6 under Brooks when its opponent score fewer than 100 points. The Thunder is 4-21 under Brooks when its opponents score 100 points or more.
* Anybody now willing to admit they thought Jerryd Bayless would be a good pick for the Thunder at No. 4? I am, but after 50 games I can say that would have been a terrible pick by Sam Presti. After watching him go 0-for-3 for three points, two assists, one rebound, three fouls and two turnovers in 26 minutes, a few things became clear. 1) He’s less of a pure point guard than Westbrook. 2) He’s extremely one-dimensional at this point. That dimension is scoring. 3) He isn’t effective without the ball in his hands. Thunder fans should be glad the team didn’t end up with Bayless.
* I heard some chatter about the sequence of Joe Smith’s block on Brandon Roy leading to Jeff Green’s dunk being the best play of the season. Not even close. Green’s buzzer-beating bank shot is head and shoulders above any play this season.
-DM-
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Just my opinion, but is there any way to keep the live blogs on the blog page? Or at least use a full-size window if it’s going to be on the sport page?
By the way, great wrap-up, DM.