OKC Thunder grades: Russell Westbrook magnificent as he rocks Nets to sleep

The OKC Thunder overcame a lackadaisical start behind the brilliance of Russell Westbrook resulting in an easy victory over the Nets. Player grades break it down.

Moving past the emotion from the victory and subsequent drama which occurred in Utah on Monday the OKC Thunder were likely extremely happy to just get back on the hardwood.

Initially, however, the Thunder sure didn’t look like a squad who were prepared to play as the Brooklyn Nets jumped on them from the tip. The Nets looked much more like a squad cognizant of needing to garner wins and build momentum down the stretch heading into the postseason. Currently seeded sixth in the East the Nets are playing a bit of a shell game as their goal is (presumably) to align with the Pacers in round one in order to avoid having to face one of the big four East teams.

This game could easily be separated into two halves based on the performances of the teams, but realistically this game was simply all about Russell Westbrook being the Beastbrook and willing his squad to the win!

To begin the game the Nets were the aggressors and the refs were calling the game allowing the tough physicality which resulted in several OKC turnovers and an early 9-0 lead for Brooklyn. The Thunder remained unsettled and cold from the floor which resulted in OKC trailing 27-19 at the end of the first quarter.

More of the same in the second quarter when the combination of Ed Davis and Jarrett Allen kept taking advantage of the Thunder cheating out on the perimeter for easy wide open back door cuts. George stopped one but Noel uncharacteristically got schooled by Davis on a couple which might have been avoided if he’d simply played solid fundamental defense.

Donovan finally remembered he had timeouts and called one at 7:26 of the second quarter with the Nets leading 36-24. Meanwhile, the Thunder to this point in the game was shooting 29 percent, had coughed up seven turnovers and had been outscored 22 to 8 points in the paint.

By the break, the Thunder who had trailed by as many as 16 points had cut the lead to 10 points with a concerted effort from (who else) Westbrook.

The second half was like channeling a memory from the first time these squads met when Paul George scored 20 points in the fourth quarter (47 in the game) to lead the Thunder to victory. The difference in this game was Westbrook was the catalyst and I can’t overstate how truly special he was on this night.

To wit, early in the third, it was a triple by Russ which cut the lead to two and another by George which gave the Thunder the lead.  Although Westbrook was exceptional throughout the game his third-quarter dominance ranks as perhaps the best this year. Once he sat, however, the Nets got the score evened up and you guessed it — once Westbrook returned he took over building a double-digit lead for the Thunder which they never conceded.

With that, let’s look at the grades.