Russell Westbrook, Kevin Durant hit historic marks in Kobe's road finale
OKLAHOMA CITY — It started with a Kevin Durant missed 3.
Steven Adams grabbed a long offensive rebound and looked to reset the offense. Kobe Bryant, who was guarding Durant on his miss, looked Adams’ way.
“Give it back to him!” Bryant yelled.
Adams kicked it back to Durant, and the stage cleared for a brief one-on-one duel between Durant and Bryant. With a couple hard dribbles and a killer cross, Durant rocked Bryant and pulled up from the elbow. Swish.
“I remember when Michael Jordan was on his way out, and Kobe didn’t take it easy on him, and that’s all I was thinking,” Durant said. “I was just trying to destroy him every chance I got and send him off right. Every time I got the ball, he was like, ‘Come on, let’s see what you got,’ and that shows the type of player, the type of person, the type of competitor he is, and it was fun to play against him one last time.”
That moment was part of a 31-13 third quarter in which Durant erupted for 16 of his 34 points as the Oklahoma City Thunder cruised to a 112-79 win over the Los Angeles Lakers on Monday in Bryant’s road finale.
The game itself was more of a backdrop to the theatrics of the evening, an ongoing tribute to Bryant’s career. Before the game, Durant and Russell Westbrook presented Bryant with a personalized book with handwritten messages from every Thunder player. The team played a two-minute video with Bryant’s high school coach, Gregg Downer, narrating his legacy. Thunder fans chanted Bryant’s name in the fourth quarter, with the Lakers down 40.
“It was special to get the opportunity to play against Kobe in his last road game,” Durant said. “Our fans did their job by coming out and showing him major love. I know we competed against them so many times, two playoff series against these guys. Coming in here as one of the most hated players, they showed a lot of class tonight, and that’s what we expected our fans to do.”
Within the celebration of Bryant’s career and legacy, the two Thunder superstars scratched a little history. Westbrook registered his 18th triple-double of the season, which tied Magic Johnson for the most in a season since 1981-82. What’s more, Westbrook recorded this one in the first half — 17 minutes and 35 seconds, which made it the quickest of his career and second-fastest in NBA history (Jim Tucker, 17 minutes in 1955).
“That’s pretty outrageous what he’s been able to do all year long,” Bryant said. “Seems to fly underneath the radar because of what [Stephen Curry is] doing up there in Golden State and what they’re doing as a team, but he’s having a historical season himself. He’s probably the most athletic player I’ve ever played against.”
Meanwhile, Durant made it 64 straight games with at least 20 points. He passed Bryant’s mark of 63 games set in 2005-06, which makes his streak the longest since Michael Jordan’s in 1990-91.
“He’s such a fantastic player, man,” Bryant said of Durant. “He has no flaws in his game. When he first came in the league, he eliminated the weaknesses that he had. The pull-up going right and the pull-up going left — he’s eliminated all of that stuff. There’s literally nothing he can’t do offensively. I don’t see that streak stopping any time soon.”
Bryant has been a touchstone for a lot of players: the hurdle to get past, the standard to reach for or the career to aspire to. Durant and Westbrook had their moment with Bryant in 2010, when they lost a hard-fought first-round series as a No. 8 seed to the eventual champion Lakers in six games. After the Lakers eliminated the Thunder, Bryant shared a moment with both Durant and Westbrook at midcourt and told them the future he saw. He saw it then, and he now sees a lot of himself in Westbrook, specifically.
“A ton. A ton,” Bryant said of the similarities between him and Westbrook. “I didn’t smile much around the court, either. He plays the game with such an energy, such an aggressiveness, it needs to be appreciated. He’s not out there trying to be cute with the basketball. He’s not out there trying to look fancy. This guy’s playing hard every time down. It takes a lot of energy to be able to do that, and he just never seems to run out of it.”
It didn’t take much energy, though, for the Thunder to roll past the Lakers on Monday. Like Bryant, Westbrook and Durant took the fourth quarter off; at one point, they looked over a box score together at the scorers’ table and laughed.
The two met Bryant when the buzzer finally sounded to share a hug and say their goodbyes. The book closed on Bryant’s road career, but for the Thunder, the season is just getting started.
