Oklahoma City Thunder’s point guard Russell Westbrook did not only help his team make a historic comeback in 114-112 win over the Brooklyn Nets on Wednesday night but also continued to make his case for being one of the all-time greats.
Westbrook finished the Nets’ game with 21 points, 17 assists and 15 rebounds, getting his 108th career triple-double and surpassing Hall of Famer Jason Kidd on the All-Time triple-double list. The 30-year-old, who won the NBA MVP award in 2017, is now on the third place on the list, behind Los Angeles Lakers legend Magic Johnson, who has 138, and Oscar Robertson, who holds the record with 181 TDs.
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“My job is to see the game, read the game [and] the game will tell you what you need to do,” – said Westbrook after achieving this feat. “As a point guard, my job is to facilitate and have control of the game, and that’s what I tried to do.“
Although Westbrook was happy about his individual achievement, he was even more pleased with the effort his team put in to beat Brooklyn Nets.
OKC Thunder entered the game against the Nets as one of the hottest teams in the Western Conference, but things didn’t look all that great for them midway through the third quarter. The Thunder found themselves 23 points behind at one moment and entered the fourth quarter trailing by 18.
Then, Paul George stepped up, orchestrating a comeback with a huge performance in which he scored a personal record of 25 points in one quarter including a game-winning three-pointer with 3.1 seconds left in the game. This was most by any Thunder player since the team moved from Seattle in 2008, while the 23 points comeback was the biggest deficit OKC managed to overcome in franchise history.
“My job is to make sure that I constantly keep telling him to stay aggressive, to play his game, because he’s that type of guy, man,” – said Westbrook about George’s performance. “He can get hot. He’s a superstar in this league; and as you seen tonight, when he gets hot, he can change the game for us.“
After starting the season 0-4, Oklahoma City Thunder now finds themselves second in the Western Conference with a record of 16-7 and a real chance to make some noise in the playoffs.
