OKLAHOMA CITY — Al-Farouq Aminu was facing the wrong way when Russell Westbrook elevated for his dagger 3 with 1 minute, 17 seconds remaining in the fourth quarter. Thia was a problem because Aminu was the one guarding Westbrook. But the electric Oklahoma City Thunder point guard put Aminu in a blender and spun him all the way around with a tight crossover. At that point, all that was going to save Aminu from highlights would be a Westbrook miss. Westbrook didn’t miss.
“I hadn’t made a 3 all night,” Westbrook said, “but that was a big one. Especially because it closed the game out.”
That’s what Westbrook had to say postgame after the Thunder’s 105-99 win over the Portland Trail Blazers on Sunday, but in the moments after it happened, he was a little more animated. He stomped and strutted his way back to the Thunder bench, screaming, “Where you going? Where you going?” as the Blazers called timeout.
The 3 was the punctuation on yet another virtuoso fourth quarter from Westbrook, the league’s top clutch-time scorer. After beating Memphis two nights before with a 15-0 run himself in the final three minutes, Westbrook scored 19 of the Thunder’s final 22 points, finishing with a tidy 42, his eighth 40-point game of the season (tied with James Harden for the most in the NBA).
“Obviously Russell was spectacular,” coach Billy Donovan said almost in passing as he went on to talk about the Thunder’s defense. Because that’s kind of the standard Westbrook has set. A line of 42 points, 4 assists and 8 rebounds is good, but it wasn’t a triple-double so was it actually good? (It’s very good.)
Where Westbrook has made significant gains has been in crunch time, both as a scorer and a playmaker. It’s a role he’s unaccustomed to, having spent the last eight seasons almost exclusively deferring to Kevin Durant in those situations, but it’s clear he is more comfortable. He’s hit a number of daggers and game-winners already this season — with his fair share of misses, too — and seems to have that uncanny knack the great clutch players have to elevate in the biggest moments. Against the Blazers, Westbrook hit six of eight shots in the fourth after struggling with his shot for most of the game.
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That was always the big question for the Thunder entering this season with Westbrook as the lone alpha — could he execute an offense in crunch time? There’s no question he monopolizes it — his usage rate soars to more than 60 percent — but the Thunder are also one of the best clutch teams in the league. He leads the league in points and assists in those situations (as well as a lot of other things). When Westbrook is good down the stretch, so are the Thunder. When he’s bad, so are they. It’s kind of that simple.
Westbrook is as equipped to handle it as any player, both mentally and physically. Few players brim with the kind of confidence he has because, make or miss, he’s going to keep coming at you. Like he said, he hadn’t made a 3 all day, but that wasn’t stopping him from pulling and hitting the biggest one in the game. He turned around Aminu, and turned in another Thunder win.
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