OKC Thunder rout Spurs, Westbrook records 31st triple-double

The OKC Thunder snapped a four game skid with a convincing 102-92 win over the San Antonio Spurs.

To start, tonight marked the first time the Spurs lost in their last ten games; the OKC Thunder simply outplayed the team with the second best record in the NBA. As is tradition, the Thunder were led by Russell Westbrook, who put up his 31st triple-double of the season.

Westbrook has now tied Wilt Chamberlain for the second-most triple-doubles in a single season, a feat which hasn’t been accomplished since 1967. He finished with 23 points, 13 rebounds and 13 assists.

It was a new look for the OKC Thunder as Billy Donovan trotted out a new starting lineup tonight. Taj Gibson replaced Domantas Sabonis as the starting power forward and the results were promising. Gibson was his usual scrappy self, but more impressive to my eye was the energy Sabonis brought to the second unit. Highlighted, of course, by this monster jam on Dewayne Dedmon:

Solid Team Effort

It was a balanced offensive effort from the Thunder tonight as five players finished with 10 or more points. Steven Adams finished with 11 points and 6 rebounds, and succeeded in getting under Danny Green’s skin in the third quarter en route to a slightly bogus double technical call from the refs:

I don’t think Steven did anything wrong there, do you?

Dougie McThunderBuckets chipped in 11 points in 22 minutes off the bench on a tidy 5-10 from the floor. Enes Kanter is starting to look more and more like his pre-injury self. He finished with a 14 point, 10 rebound double-double.

Must Read: Jeremy Lambert’s Oklahoma City Thunder game show

Speaking of looking like pre-injury selves, Victor Oladipo played sensationally this evening. Dipo had 20 points on 8-14 shooting (3-4 from deep). He also combined with Andre Roberson to hinder dark horse MVP candidate Kawhi Leonard to 19 points on 6-15 shooting. Oladipo also had two highlight plays this evening:

Both plays were simply breathtaking.

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The OKC Thunder dominated the game almost start to finish. The Thunder held the Spurs to 41.7 percent shooting and out-rebounded the Spurs 48-40. Also, Oklahoma City had three less turnovers.

Surprisingly the Spurs were particularly sloppy with the ball tonight, committing 14 turnovers against 15 assists, much to the chagrin of Head Coach Gregg Popovich. Conversely, OKC finished with 23 assists and only 11 turnovers. Fun fact: the Thunder went close to 20 minutes without a turnover at one point.

What’s Next for OKC

With the win, the OKC Thunder improve to 36-29. In addition, they now hold the 6th seed in the Western Conference, following a Memphis Grizzlies loss to the Los Angeles Clippers tonight. The Thunder are off tomorrow before hosting division rival Utah Jazz on Saturday. The Thunder will look to trim the five game lead the Jazz have on them for the top spot in the Northwest Division.