http://dailythunder.com/2013/02/thunder-player-power-rankings-crunched/#more-24004

With one shot better than his last, Irving scored 35 points, including 13 in the final 2:52, as the Cleveland Cavaliers stunned the Oklahoma City Thunder 115-110 on Saturday.

One night after saying he was ”disinterested” during a loss in Detroit, Irving was simply spectacular down the stretch. He single-handedly closed out one of the NBA’s best teams, making his last five shots and showing why he’s an All-Star at age 20. Irving’s biggest bucket was a 3-pointer with 42 seconds left to make it 113-108.

”He’s a killer,” said newly acquired Cavs forward Marreese Speights, who added 21 points. ”I knew a little about him, I didn’t know THAT.”

Kevin Durant scored 32 points and Russell Westbrook had 28 for the Thunder, who came in 35-11 and with the league’s best road record. Durant left briefly in the third quarter with an injured rib, but returned and scored 13 in the fourth.

However, it wasn’t enough to offset Irving, who sent the Thunder home with a loss.

”He’s one of the best in the business,” Thunder coach Scott Brooks said. ”Give him a lot of credit.”

Tristan Thompson added 12 rebounds and C.J. Miles scored 16 for the Cavs, who had played poorly in consecutive losses this week to Golden State and Detroit.

Irving was so frustrated with the Cavs’ lackluster effort on Friday night against the Pistons that afterward he admitted to not being as involved as he should have been. Before facing the Thunder, he promised it would never happen again and the reigning rookie of the year more than kept his word.

”I figured he’d be a lot more focused – and he was,” Cavs coach Byron Scott said. ”He’s a closer. That’s exactly what he did.”

With the Cavs trailing 101-100, Irving, who sat out the first 6:12 of the fourth, drew a foul and hit two free throws. On Cleveland’s next possession, he drove and dropped a layup to make it 104-101. Durant’s two free throws brought the Thunder within one, but Irving, dribbling between his legs and around Oklahoma City’s defenders, hit a floater from the baseline.

Westbrook scored seconds later, and after Thompson scored for Cleveland, Durant coolly buried a 3-pointer to tie it at 108 with 1:26 remaining.

Then, with a sold-out Quicken Loans quaking the way it once did when LeBron James starred here, Irving dribbled through the lane, bought some room with a ridiculous hesitation move and hit another layup. Durant missed a 3-pointer with 59 seconds left, giving Irving a chance to ice it.

And that he did, burying a long 3 from the top of the key over Westbrook before clenching both fists in celebration.

”I never know what shot I’m going to take,” said Irving, who was just 1 of 7 to start the game. ”I saw him back on his heels a little bit.”

Durant got the Thunder to 113-110 but Irving did it again, this time knocking down a 12-foot bank shot to cap a performance none of the 20,562 fans on hand will soon forget – and one Irving hopes to draw upon in the future.

”It’s my responsibility as a leader of this team to do this every single night,” he said. ”It has to come from within.”

The Thunder surrendered in the final seconds, and after the horn sounded, Westbrook wrapped his arms around Irving, who had gotten the best of him.

”He came through in the fourth quarter,” Durant said. ”He hit some big shots. He hit a tough 3. He was getting to the rim. He’s a quick guy.”

Durant appeared to injure his lower back in the third while hustling back on defense. He stayed in the game for two minutes before he was escorted to the locker room, grabbing his right side. When he left, the Thunder led by five but by the time he returned to the bench with 9:55 remaining, the Cavaliers had tied it at 81.

Following the game, Durant said he was fine.

Speights, recently acquired in a trade with Memphis, gave the Cavs a huge spark in the fourth, scoring 10 of Cleveland’s 13 points in one stretch. The 6-foot-10 big man has only practiced twice with his new teammates.

”I love what I see,” Scott said of Speights, who is helping ease the season-ending loss of Anderson Varejao. ”He’s a great kid around these guys, and he’s very vocal, which is what we need.”

Westbrook was better behaved than on Thursday night, when he snapped at his teammates and stormed off to the locker room in the third quarter of a blowout win over the Grizzlies. The Thunder chalked it up to Westbrook being Westbrook, but Brooks said he didn’t worry about the outburst having any carryover effect.

Westbrook left before speaking with reporters.

Durant finished just 8 of 21 from the floor. He had several shots rim out in the first half, when he went just 3 of 10. His three-point play with three seconds left gave the Thunder a 57-52 lead at the break.

NOTES: Scott said the only player he has seen score as effortlessly as Durant was George ”The Iceman” Gervin. ”He got 37 and I didn’t see a drop of sweat,” Scott said, ”and most of it was on me. And to add insult to injury he said, ‘Don’t worry about it, young fella. You’ll be all right.”’ … Thunder rookie swingman Jeremy Lamb was inactive because of a back issue. He did not make the trip. … The Thunder fell to 22-6 when Durant and Westbrook each score at least 20. … Oklahoma City finished a stretch of playing 12 of 15 games on the road.
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Hey Coach, haven’t you had enough of your play book tactic to just go to your only plan, give the ball to Westbrook and Durant. The whole NBA basketball coaches already know that play and they just tell their boys to crowd both of them and game over, they win!

The Indiana Pacers proved one thing Friday night: Beating Miami last month was no fluke.

David West scored 30 points, Paul George added 15, and the Pacers never trailed after the first quarter as they pulled away from the defending NBA champs 102-89 in a game that was even more lopsided than the score.

”We want to be dominant at home, and we’re getting there,” Pacers coach Frank Vogel said. ”David West was spectacular. He has a way of giving us contagious confidence. He has that look that carries over to everyone else where we’re not going to lose tonight.”

The rest of the Pacers (28-19) had that look, too.

They joined the New York Knicks as the only teams to beat Miami twice this season and have won three straight regular-season games over the Heat. Miami won the last three games in last spring’s Eastern Conference semifinals on their way to winning the NBA crown.

And Indiana beat a team that promised to be more focused, more motivated and more physical than the first time around. None of it mattered.

Since ending a three-game losing streak Wednesday night, Indiana has won two straight by double digits and its 13-game home winning streak is the team’s longest since it won 14 in a row in 2002-03.

Not enough?

The Pacers still haven’t played with former All-Star Danny Granger this season, though Vogel hopes to have him back on the court before the All-Star break and certainly before the next showdown between Indiana and Miami in March.

Perhaps most impressive is that Indiana has now beaten Miami in two different ways.

In January, they used a suffocating defense and a precision offense to limit Miami to a season-low point total in the 87-77 victory.

On Friday, they held Miami under 90 points again, something that hadn’t happened since Jan. 8, but the Pacers won this one with an efficient offense.

Indiana shot a season-high 55.7 percent from the field, a number that included 11 straight baskets from West after he missed his first shot of the game. Five players reached double figures and the Pacers came within three points of matching their highest non-overtime point total of the season (105).

”We have to get better and play better at both ends of the court,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. ”Hopefully, we will. They just outplayed us on both ends of the court.”

For Miami (29-14), it was a frustrating night.

James finished with his customary 28 points and had six rebounds and three assists. Wade added 17 points, six rebounds and five assists. Bosh had 13 points and only two rebounds, partly because of foul trouble. But the rest of the team combined for 31 points, 11 from Shane Battier, and 15 rebounds.

They still got outrebounded, and the loss prevented Miami from clinching the best record in the East before the All-Star break, which would have given Spoelstra a ticket to Houston to coach the Eastern Conference All-Stars.

How tough was it? Three players — Bosh, Battier and Udonis Haslem — and Spoelstra all drew technical fouls.

It was enough to make Miami scratch their heads.

”I think they (Pacers) are playing some really good basketball right now. They’re kind of like us, they play great basketball at home, they kind struggle on the road. It’s like two different teams sometimes,” James said. ”But they have improved and I think the biggest improvement is Paul George. He’s improving, that’s why he’s an All-Star.”

It looked easy.

Indiana took control of the game with a 13-0 run that turned a 23-20 deficit into a 33-23 lead early in the second quarter, and the Heat never tied the score or took the lead again.

The Pacers, meanwhile, methodically extended the margin. They closed the first half on an 8-4 mini-run to make it 53-45, then opened the second half by scoring the first six points to take a 59-45 lead.

When Miami closed to 64-54 on two free throws by Mario Chalmers with 7:13 to go in the third quarter, Indiana came right back with a 12-3 run that ended with two free throws from West. That gave Indiana a 76-57 lead with 3:16 left in the quarter, and Miami never got closer than 12 again.

”It’s good to beat them, but we can’t overreact to this,” West said after missing only three of his 15 shots. ”We match up with them. I think we’ve got some familiarity with them because of the playoff series. But they’re a tough team. They’re going to adjust the next time we see them.”

Notes: The Heat are 0-2 against the Knicks and Pacers, 0-1 against the Bulls and 3-0 against Brooklyn — the teams currently seeded two through five in the Eastern Conference. … The Pacers have limited nine straight opponents to fewer than 100 points inside Bankers Life Fieldhouse. … Miami dropped to 9-37 all-time at Indiana. … The Heat finished with 25 rebounds, the fewest against Indiana all season.

At timeout, Frank Vogel said to his team, “don’t let the Heat get started on their three point shooting.”

Nevertheless, Westbrook is still capable of acting out in ways that make people ask why he can’t be more like his more widely beloved teammate Kevin Durant. On Thursday night against the Memphis Grizzlies, Westbrook had one of those moments. With just under nine minutes left in the third quarter and the Thunder up 65-40, Westbrook was whistled for a five-second backdown violation (aka the Mark Jackson rule). Immediately after the call, he began to yell at teammate Thabo Sefolosha, who cut through the lane during Westbrook’s post-up and brought a second defender into the area. Westbrook couldn’t move into the lane as he wanted, and he blamed Sefolosha for it.

Roughly a minute later, OKC head coach Scott Brooks subbed out Westbrook, presumably because he wasn’t happy with his attitude. Assistant coach Maurice Cheeks attempted to calm down Westbrook on the bench, but he was ineffective. So a very angry Westbrook stormed off and headed back into the locker room for several minutes. He returned in a better mood (and with a towel on his head), and the Thunder went on to win by the comfortable score of 106-89. Westbrook was a major reason for that margin of victory — he finished with 21 points on 9-of-17 shooting, nine rebounds, and six assists.

There was initially some confusion as to why Westbrook acted out. Royce Young of Daily Thunder accurately noted that Westbrook was upset with Sefolosha, but Craig Sager of TNT initially reported that Westbrook and Durant were in a feud. Thankfully, Sager corrected that information with three minutes left in the game.

It is hard to excuse Westbrook’s actions, because he yelled at a teammate over a lost possession when the Thunder were up 25 points. That sort of behavior is quite emphatically not what coaches like to see from their All-NBA players — those guys are typically expected to be leaders who galvanize the rest of the roster and enhance team cohesion.

I suppose it can be argued that Westbrook’s immaturity will eventually become untenable, but he’s done enough dumb things in his career that it’s hard to imagine his relationship with his teammates and coaches becoming impossible.

In short, the qualities that make Westbrook yell at a teammate and get upset on the bench are bad. He’s is a Van Exel and Allen Iverson all rolled into one!

Now that it shows that, why did he not approach Scott Brooks first for what’s in his mind and have more clarification and forego any drama. Is he thinking that Scott Brooks will not listen to him and thinks that Brooks will side on Durant more than him? Durant was brought to the situation only because he was trying to calm Westbrook. Most probably if Durant knew that Westbrook will bring that issue to a higher level, Durant would not have bother to broker between Westbrook and Sefolosha, but Durant is a co-captain ball of this team.

Brooks should penalize Westbrook for his actions, but not sure he will go further than sitting him for more thsn 5 minutes of the 3rd quarter! Let’s make it the same for all players, as the other playersof the same age have not blown offfor nothing, its only him.

Hope he get penalized by the NBA for acts of unbecoming of a professional basketball player and the Thunder management should do the same!