OKC Thunder 3 takeaways: Sweeping OT classic in Portland
Battle of the Backcourts:
Thunder superstars:
After missing three games Paul George looked more than a little rusty in his initial game versus the Wolves. This may be partially due to his rotator cuff not being fully healed. In that outing, he shot an anemic 32 percent (8 of 25) from the field and worse kept taking perimeter shots despite shooting 28.6 percent (4 of 14).
Last night he was actually worse from an efficiency perspective shooting 30.4 percent from the field on 7 of 23 shots and 11.1 percent from deep on 1 of 9. Instead, he made his mark at the line shooting TWENTY free throws connecting on 17 which amassed the more than half of his final 32 point tally.
Paul George's streak of 40 straight games with multiple 3-pointers made was snapped last night. It ends as the third-longest such streak in NBA history, trailing only a 50-game streak by Stephen Curry and an active 41-game streak by Curry.
— Justin Kubatko (@jkubatko) March 8, 2019
Interestingly, Damian Lillard also got to the line 20 times. The odd part of this equation is the game never felt like it was mired in whistles.
Russell Westbrook produced arguably one of his top five games of the season and kept the Moda Center crowd riled throughout. Russ shot 50 percent from the field (14 of 28) and connected on 62.5 percent from deep (5 of 8) resulting in his 37 points.
Yet, more than his timely scoring and normal tangibles he brings to the court it was his constant aggression which was palpable. In retrospect, if you were to assign a player personality who the game resembled it would hands down be Westbrook.
https://twitter.com/NBATV/status/1103911612413431811
Blazers super backcourt:
On the opposite side of the hardwood, the Blazers backcourt offered up brilliance of their own with Damian Lillard confirming he’s a bad, bad man (which is a hat tip from yours truly). Dame’s game is at a level where even as an opposing fan you can’t help but appreciate.
His overall game management is exceptional as he picks and chooses when to insert himself more or if others are cold when to take over and be more dominant. The last word being the operative word here as Lillard dropped 51 points on the Thunder along with nine assists and five rebounds. As mentioned Dame like George got to the line 20 times.
https://twitter.com/NBATV/status/1103916851782774784
CJ McCollum pitched in 25 points which oddly I was surprised by because they seemed to happen in a quiet fashion. Kudos to Terrance Ferguson who kept CJ in check for the most of the game.
Crazy to think this quartet produced 145 points. 31 rebounds and 18 assists in a game which featured a total of 28 assists.
In a future article, we’ll have to dive into this foursome a bit deeper to determine if the OKC duo has pushed the Portland duo down the backcourt ranking ladder.