Thunder earn their first fourth quarter comeback of the season against Utah

OKC Thunder Player Grades

Starting Lineup

Russell Westbrook was the spark plug all night. When the Thunder struggled to score a bucket in the second quarter, Russ came in and made three straight shots. When the Thunder were down 17 with 4 minutes left in the 3rd, Russ scored 11 points to pull it within 12. This game wasn’t just about Russ’ scoring dominance though – the reigning League MVP finished with his 8th triple-double of the season (34 points, 13 assists, 14 rebounds). The only thing keeping him from an A+ was his poor play in the first quarter.

The Lowkey MVP is back!!!!! For the third game in a row Roberson has been a positive on both ends of the floor. But of course, it’s the defensive end where he feasted. Roberson recorded two steals and three blocks as he disrupted Utah’s rhythm all night. The ever-impressive rookie Donovan Mitchell got loose on the 26-year old a few times, but other then that Roberson was near-perfect on that side of the court.

Paul George struggled so much in the first quarter that I can’t give him anything higher than a B; that’s how good George was to end the game. George was heading to a fat F grade after the first half. He recorded 6 turnovers on 1-5 shooting, leading me to tweet that “He looked like Andre Roberson on the offensive end.” Luckily I misspelled “offensive” so that tweet isn’t on the Internet because George was beautiful in the second half. PG hit a few clutch shots, including an and-one with 1:50 left that put the Thunder up for good.

Like George, Carmelo gets hurt for the beginning/middle of the game. Like George, Carmelo turned up when it mattered most. Unlike George, Carmelo’s struggled lasted through the third quarter. Melo scored 8 of his 14 in that frame, making 4-6 from the field after going 2-13 before the quarter started. I’m actually not concerned with him taking 19 shots either – most of them came within the OKC offense. While his defense lacked tonight, Melo was fantastic on the boards. He out-rebounded both Derrick Favors and Rudy Gobert, a large part why the Thunder were able to keep the game “close” when everything else seemed to be going wrong.

I could go on and on about Steven Adams every game, but I would be saying the same things over and over. As always, the Big Kiwi was too much to handle on the glass, he found the right angles for easy buckets when rolling to the basket, and disrupted Utah’s ability to score at the rim. The story is in the two center’s respective stat lines though:

Adams: 20 points, 9-10 shooting, 9 rebounds (6 offensive), 1 steal, 3 fouls

Gobert: 5 points, 1-2 shooting, 6 rebounds (1 offensive), 1 steal, 1 block, 5 fouls

Pure domination.