By Michael Doutey
The Oklahoma City Thunder completed a 15 point comeback, winning 109-108 over the Brooklyn Nets on Tuesday night in Oklahoma City. The Thunder really struggled to score the basketball during the first three quarters of the game, but Raymond Felton sparked a fourth quarter rally to get OKC back in the game. Russell Westbrook scored a tough, contested layup with 3.3 seconds left that gave OKC the lead and the win. It was not pretty at times, but OKC made the plays late to propel them to their fifth straight win. Here are tonight’s five observations from another thrilling Thunder win.
1. Uncle Ray to Save the Day
OKC was down 85-74 to begin the 4th quarter and that’s when Raymond Felton took the game over. With a blink of an eye, Felton had scored 10 points on 4-4 shooting. As the Nets then turned their defensive attention on Ray, he then began moving the ball, which lead to two corner three’s from Patrick Patterson and then another three from Josh Huestis. Raymond Felton put the game on his back and OKC wouldn’t have been able to have completed the comeback without him.
2. Russ Finished the Game
Once Ray got OKC back in the game, Russ finished it off. Russ hit the game winning shot with 3.3 seconds to go and scored 10 fourth quarter points as he shot 4-6 from the field in the final frame. Russ scored 32 total points in the game and shot 12-27 from the field and 0-4 from three. Russ didn’t have a great shooting night, but he did score enough to keep OKC in striking distance. Once Ray got OKC back in the game, Russ finished it off as he continues to make winning plays in crunch time. Russ has become one of the NBA’s best closers and that was on display again tonight.
3. PG’s Hot Shooting Start
Today the NBA announced the reserves for the 2018 NBA All-Star Game and Westbrook was selected for his 7th All-Star game. However, Paul George was not. So, kind of expectedly, PG went off in the first half of tonight’s game. He scored 16 of his 28 points in the first quarter tonight. PG was red hot from the floor, shooting 6-10 and 1-3 from deep in the opening quarter. It looked as if he was sending a message to those who snubbed him from this year’s All-Star Game. PG said that had nothing to do with it, but I’m going to read into this performance a little. I think PG is an All-Star in this league and he should be in this game. Russell Westbrook also agrees, saying it is “outrageous” that PG was left off the team. Russ, I have to agree with you.
4. Tough Night Scoring For Adams
Steven Adams is typically really good at scoring around the rim. It was an off night for Adams, who had a monster game against the Cavs on Saturday. Adams was good on defense and incredible on the offensive glass, grabbing nine of his 14 total rebounds on the offensive end. But Steven scored just six points on 3-12 shooting and he missed both his free throws. Hopefully this was just on off night against a bad team and not the start of the mid-season slump.
5. Western Conference Standings Update
The West is an interesting watch as far as the standings go. OKC is now 27-20 on the season and are currently three games behind the Minnesota Timberwolves and the San Antonio Spurs and just two games behind both in the loss column. So, OKC is essentially just three games out of the three seed. However, OKC is just a game-and-a-half ahead of the New Orleans Pelicans, two games ahead of the Portland Trail Blazers, three games ahead of the Denver Nuggets and three-and-a-half games ahead of the Los Angeles Clippers. So, OKC is just three-and-a-half games ahead of the ninth spot in the West, which is obviously out of the playoffs. That is insane that OKC is nearly just as close to the three seed as they are of being outside looking in on the playoff picture.
The Thunder put their NBA best five game winning streak on the line Thursday night as OKC plays host the the Washington Wizards. Tip time is set for 7 p.m. inside the Chesapeake Energy Arena.
