Player Grades: OKC Thunder third quarter malaise leads to Pelicans victory in final pre-break game

Player Grades

Big surprise – Russell Westbrook played game 57 just like he would game 1 or game 82. Russ simply doesn’t take a game off and his efforts along with his partner in crime PG13 were almost enough to pull out the victory.

Westbrook scored a game and team-high 44 points along with 14 rebounds and 11 assists to extend his consecutive triple-double string to 11 games. Russ added a steal and two blocks.

These games are the ones you typically would see stars rested. Especially facing a lottery bound team and being the last game prior to the break. But, the OKC Thunder don’t roll that way and neither does the Brodie. There he was diving on the court twice in the last minute of the game trying to secure another opportunity for the Thunder to steal the game.

Sure, he probably took too many perimeter shots and missed the 3-point shot at the game end to narrow the Pelican’s lead to two – but given only three Thunder players scored in double-figures it’s hard to discount the effort and production he brought to the court.