OKC Thunder and Russell Westbrook Make it Six Straight vs. Hawks
On the second night of a back-to-back, the OKC Thunder managed to hang on against the Atlanta Hawks, winning by a score of 102-99.
The Streak. Is Over.
Not the winning streak, which is now six, and not Russell Westbrook’s triple-double streak, which is also at six. But Andre Roberson’s double digit point streak ends at three games. That’s what we’re all talking about, right?
It was a strange one in Atlanta, where neither team looked like they knew how to play basketball in the first quarter. If it wasn’t a foul, it was a turnover. If it wasn’t a turnover, it was a foul. OKC led 55-54 at halftime despite Russell Westbrook shooting 1/7. To his credit, he did have seven rebounds and eight assists. Steven Adams was feasting with 12 points and six rebounds. Meanwhile, Victor Oladipo did this…
Worth another ????!
Victor Oladipo 14 points. #ThunderUp pic.twitter.com/ECpvldrIYJ— OKC THUNDER (@okcthunder) December 6, 2016
In the third quarter, Russell Westbrook happened. He notched his sixth straight triple double and scored 16 points in the quarter. The Hawks managed 15 as a team. It looked like OKC would cruise to victory, but that wouldn’t be the Thunder way of doing things. The Hawks climbed back in the game in the fourth, and had a chance to tie it at the end of regulation, but strong defense, some clutch shots by Westbrook, and a poor final play gave OKC a 102-99 victory.
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Let’s discuss Westbrook, specifically, the Law of Russ.
After a poor shooting first half, you just knew that wasn’t going to continue. We’ve seen it so many times this year. Westbrook is bad in the first half because he is looking for rebounds and assists, so he doesn’t get in rhythm with his own offense, but then he starts firing in the second half and everything falls.
You hear people talk about “regression to the mean” all the time. If a team shoots 60% from three in the first quarter, chances are they’ll regress to around 30% by the end of the game. That’s a lot of missed threes throughout the final three quarters.
The same thing applies to Russ, except that it’s usually in reverse because he never starts out that hot. He starts off cold, and then gets hot because the best way to break a slump is to keep shooting. We should all be very worried if Russ starts out hot, because that means he’ll get cold as the game goes along.
Such is the Law of Russ.
Aside from Westbrook, the other stand out performance came from Anthony Morrow. After a couple of poor shooting games, Morrow find his stroke again. He knocked down four three’s, finished with 15 points, and played strong defense. He even recorded a steal, which I wasn’t sure was possible until I saw it with my own two eyes.
Did I mention that Victor Oladipo did this?
Oladipo legit dunk of the year material. Holy moly https://t.co/ByS6NtMKu8
— Fred Katz (@FredKatz) December 6, 2016
Aside from that dunk, Oladipo didn’t have a great game. But when you do that and your team still wins, all is forgiven.
The Hawks starters were held in check for the majority of the game, with only Paul Millsap (24) and Dennis Schroder (17) providing any offense. The other three starters combined for 12 points. Kent Bazemore, a player a lot of Thunder fans hope to see in OKC, went 0/7 and didn’t record a single point.
The Thunder won’t play again until Friday, which means we can enjoy this six game win streak all week. Then we can all freak out that James Harden will drop 50 on Friday night.
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