It had been a long game for many reasons. His shots hadn’t been falling and the team had blown a 16-point lead but he launched a three-pointer with 8.5 seconds left to tie it at 105 and send his Thunder and the Washington Wizards into overtime.
And so then there Russell Westbrook was, perched on the lane line at the start of overtime as his teammate Jerami Grant pitched his second free throw. In a flash, like a defensive end bending around an offensive tackle, Westbrook spun around the man intending to box him out, grabbing the offensive rebound. He put it back in off the glass and the Thunder never looked back, running off a 13-2 run to start overtime, winning 126-115.
“You have to want it more than the other person. Plain and simple,” Westbrook said. “For me, every play matters. Regardless of what’s going on in the game, you can always impact the game in different ways.”
Westbrook’s night didn’t start well, just 1-for-8 from the field, and the Thunder’s evening as a whole wasn’t always pretty. In stretches of every quarter, Head Coach Billy Donovan’s team struggled to string stops and scores together, but its relentless leader helped pull everyone together down the stretch.
In the fourth quarter and overtime, Westbrook scored 21 points on 7-for-15 shooting, grabbed six rebounds and dished out five assists. He finished with his fourth-straight triple-double, and ninth of the season, with a 35-point, 14-rebound, 11-assist leave-it-all-out-there effort.
“It’s Russ man. He’s unbelievable man. Whatever it takes to win,” guard Anthony Morrow said, shaking his head. “It’s a byproduct of his hard work. That boy works hard. We see him in the gym every day.”
Westbrook was far from the only player to have a highlight play on Wednesday night. In the second quarter the Thunder ran off a stretch of three straight steals that led to transition plays, and a crucial fourth quarter steal by Semaj Christon led to a Victor Oladipo dunk that sent the Chesapeake Energy Arena crowd into a frenzy.
Rookie Domas Sabonis got into the act too, causing a gasp-then-roar from the crowd by standing up to Marcin Gortat at the rim by blocking his shot, both preventing a dunk and leading to a Steven Adams slam and Wizards timeout.
“It was just fun out there being with the guys and the arena, the fans getting really loud,” Sabonis said off the scene in the building before he was mobbed by teammates. “They were just happy and messing around.”
The game was truly won, however, by Donovan and his staff’s adjustment in the fourth quarter and the Thunder’s ability to execute it. The Wizards went extremely small with its lineup, playing the final nine minutes of the fourth quarter and most of overtime with Markieff Morris at center alongside four guards.
Donovan responded in kind, putting Jerami Grant at center, surrounded by combinations of Westbrook, Oladipo, Morrow, Christon and Andre Roberson so the Thunder could switch at all five positions. In uncharted territory, these young Thunder players figured it out and played with maximum effort.
“Amazing,” Westbrook reviewed. “They adjusted well. We’d never played with that lineup before all season long. Tonight was the night we tried it. We did a great job of adjusting – not only that, but of rebounding the ball and knowing the coverages as well.”
“We worked it out. There were a lot of little things in-game we were figuring out of the bench,” Morrow explained. “We were taking them out of what they wanted to do so it worked out.”
The key to it all was Grant – a small forward who has slid over to play power forward before but never center. The Thunder’s strength as a team is probably its depth up front – with Steven Adams, Enes Kanter, Joffrey Lauvergne and Sabonis imposing their will – but tonight’s matchup called for Grant to slide over and provide rim protection, to sprint into pick and rolls on the fly and stay in front of guards on switches.
“(Grant) can do a little bit of everything. That’s why he’s so great,” Oladipo said. “He’s so versatile. He can guard 1-through-5. We need him. He came in and played great for us.”
“It was fun,” Grant said, with some youthful humility in his eyes. “They changed their lineup so we had to adjust to what they were doing. We’ve never done that before but you always have to be ready for everything. The key was being focused and communication on the defensive end.”
Highlights: Thunder vs. Wizards - Nov. 30, 2016
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By the Numbers
9 – Triple doubles this season for Russell Westbrook, making it four in four straight games, matching his career-best streak
10-for-16 – Shooting numbers for Victor Oladipo, including a 5-for-9 mark from the three-point line for 25 points
25-5 – Advantage in fast break points for the Thunder on the night, aided by 19 points off 12 Wizards turnovers
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The Last Word
“We all came ready to play. Guys stepped in and played well for us. We did a great job of switching and keeping everybody in front of us towards the end of the game.” – guard Victor Oladipo