Russ on inbound-to-himself buzzer-beater: ‘I’ve done that before’
Lest you need any additional confirmation of the fact that Russell Westbrook’s one of the most creative and irrepressible scorers in the NBA, here’s how he capped the first half of the Oklahoma City Thunder’s Sunday night meeting with the Utah Jazz:
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With just 0.7 seconds remaining in the second quarter and the Jazz holding a 51-36 lead, Westbrook prepared to trigger the inbounds pass under the OKC basket in hopes of giving the Thunder something to feel good about at intermission after a first half in which they’d struggled to the tune of 36 points on 32.4 percent shooting. Seven-tenths of a second isn’t much time, but it’s enough to catch and shoot … provided, of course, you can inbound the ball, which Westbrook was having a hard time doing, thanks to the long-armed sideline pressure of Jazz center Jeff Withey and some sharp switching by Utah’s wings as Oklahoma City tried to work Kevin Durant free at the free-throw line.
With the five-second clock to inbound ticking down and no open passes available, Westbrook elected to improvise, tossing the ball off of Jazz defender Rodney Hood — who was face-guarding Dion Waiters in the short corner — before stepping onto the court, catching the carom off Hood’s back, turning toward the basket and flipping up a jumper just over the outstretched arm of Withey and just before the end-of-quarter buzzer to splash through, cutting the deficit to 13 and sending a jolt of electricity through the Chesapeake Energy Arena faithful.
You will be shocked to learn that this is not exactly how Billy Donovan drew it up. From ESPN.com’s Royce Young:
Russell Westbrook was the inbounder and the play call was supposed to be something going to the basket, a back-screen to try to free Steven Adams, with a secondary option to throw it to the top of the key to just heave it up and hope. […]
“That was unreal,” Kevin Durant said. “Only Russ would make some play like that.”
Said Westbrook: “[Durant has] made a lot more crazy shots than I have. I was just trying to get a shot up and kind of read the situation.” […]
Westbrook himself didn’t seem overly impressed with his improvisational genius. It’s not the first time he has used an opposing backside to come up with a bucket. In Detroit he got caught in the air on a jumper and tossed it off Brandon Knight and went in for a layup.
“I’ve done that before,” Westbrook said. “I’ve done that in college. A lot of teams would do that, so I just read it and his back was to me, so I just threw it off him.”
It’d be a little too easy to suggest that Westbrook’s moment of inspiration got the Thunder on track, but Oklahoma City did come out of halftime hot, ripping off a 25-7 run in the first 5 1/2 minutes of the frame behind Westbrook and a suddenly switched-on Durant, who combined for 20 points on perfect 6-for-6 shooting with two assists in the run.
With Westbrook and Durant leading OKC, and wing playmakers Gordon Hayward and Alec Burks (inserted in the Utah starting lineup for point guard Raul Neto in an attempt to wear down Westbrook with more size on both ends of the court) carrying the offensive load for Utah, the two teams went back and forth throughout the second half, with the Jazz carrying a three-point lead into the final minute, as relayed by Anthony Slater of The Oklahoman:
With 49 seconds left, the Thunder trailed 94-91. Durant, who was scorching by that point, had the ball isolated in the post. He had a smaller defender on him, so the Jazz doubled. Durant surveyed the floor, identified a weak spot and made the kind of late-game trust pass coach Billy Donovan can only hope becomes habit.
“I seen them shift all the way over and leave Serge [Ibaka] wide open,” Durant said. “That’s a bad move because he can shoot that.”
Durant whipped a cross-court laser right to Ibaka. Derrick Favors tried to recover, sprinting back toward Ibaka and jumping. But Ibaka stayed patient, pump-faked, let him soar by and then knocked in the game-tying three.
“I see him working on that every day,” Durant said. “The pump-fake, fly-by three. Huge shot.”
Hayward canned a pull-up jumper on the other end, which Durant answered by driving left past Derrick Favors for a two-handed flush that knotted the game up at 96. After Hayward threw the ball into the 15th row on his last attempt to make a game-winning play and Durant came up empty on a last-second shot, the two teams headed to OT … and that’s where the wheels fell off for the Jazz.
“We were really, really good and we got really tired,” coach Quin Snyder said later, according to Murray Evans of The Associated Press. “It really came down, if we could have gotten a couple of defensive rebounds at the end of the game. We were clearly fatigued in overtime. We’d been able to attack most of the game and just ran out of steam.”
The Thunder, however, did not. Westbrook hit his first two shots. Durant followed with a pullup J to push the lead to six. Hayward pushed the ball off a Westbrook miss looking for a fast-break dunk to energize his team and get them back in the game, but Ibaka loudly and emphatically put the kibosh on that:
“It was surprising because I thought Hayward had him beat,” Durant said after the game, according to Slater of The Oklahoman.
Yeah, but most of us also thought the Jazz had Westbrook’s inbounds pass pretty well covered. The Thunder can do stuff that doesn’t necessarily make sense.
OKC held Utah scoreless for the first four minutes and 51 seconds of overtime, sealing a 104-98 win. Durant led the way with a game-high 31 points — 29 of which came after halftime — on 10-for-17 shooting with six assists, five rebounds, a steal and a block in 42 1/2 minutes:
Westbrook added 25 on 9-for-25 shooting with a game-high 11 rebounds, five dimes, two blocks, two steals and just one turnover in 40 minutes. Ibaka scored just seven points, but added six rebounds and six blocks while holding Utah to 33.3 percent shooting when he was defending the basket for the Thunder, who have now won five straight and nine of their last 11 to improve to 16-8 on the season, the third-best record in the West.
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Dan Devine is an editor for Ball Don’t Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter!
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