Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook lead the way as Oklahoma City Thunder decimate Denver Nuggets – NBA Recap
On Thursday night Oklahoma City Thunder used some 3rd quarter muscle to out gun Denver Nuggets 103-90 on their turf.
Kevin Durant was on song as he collected a game high 24 points while Russell Westbrook tallied 23. Reserve James Harden had 18 and Daequan Cook poured in 11 coming off the bench.
Nuggets were playing without their centre Nene Hilario, who is being traded off to Washington Wizards in a deal that landed JaVale McGee and Ronny Turiaf on their bench during the game.
Andre Miller recorded 17 for Denver and Danilo Gallinari had 15 while Arron Afflalo chipped in with 10 points.
Nene Hilario’s departure left the Denver bench in sombre mood and that reflected upon their performance at the end.
"We are paid a lot of money to focus on our job and play game by game without thinking about nothing else”. Danilo Gallinari said. “Losing Nene is tough. Everybody knows how important Nene was for us, but this is the NBA. It's a business."
Thunder dominated Nuggets completely in the game as they blocked 9 shots and outscored the hosts 28-14 in the 3rd frame.
Oklahoma claimed an early 20-15 advantage in the opening frame and were up 29-25 by the end of segment. The lead ballooned to 44-32 with a 15-7 run early in the 2nd but the hosts clawed that off after reeling a huge 19-3 spurt to claim a 51-47
lead deep through the frame.
However Russell Westbrook chipped in with 3 freebies and reduced the deficit down to 51-50 by the end of 2nd stanza.
Nuggets went cold in the 3rd as they netted only 14 points while Thunder came up with a 20-6 run in the frame and converted their 1 point deficit into double digit 70-57 lead.
Nuggets tried to trim that with an 8-3 run late in the period and reduced the gap to 73-65, but Thunder capped of the frame after a 5-nothing, the score 78-65.
Kevin Durant who had 9 points in this frame was contended with his team.
"We wanted to establish ourselves in the post to start the second half. We got a few defensive three-second calls and Serge (Ibaka) did a great job for us establishing himself in that third quarter and the defence was very good."
After a strong 3rd quarter Thunder faced no difficulty in stretching their lead to 90-77 mid way through the decisive frame.
They came up with a final 13-8 run to claim an unbeatable 103-85 margin with only 54.7 clicks left in the game. Denver could only reduce the margin of their defeat to 103-90 after wards.
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