Kevin Durant comes up big as Oklahoma City Thunder edge out Dallas Mavericks - NBA Playoffs Game 2 Recap - Part 1
The Oklahoma City Thunder grabbed the second win in their series against the Dallas Mavericks after a thrilling game at the Chesapeake Energy Arena. The Thunder go 2 – 0 up in the Western Conference first round playoffs matchup after a game that went right down to the wire; Oklahoma City edging a 102 – 99 win.
Three time NBA scoring champion, Kevin Durant, was instrumental for the home team once more - the forward raking in 26 points and 10 rebounds in a double-double effort. Durant missed some shots but was decisive in the end. The player though deflected praise to his team, especially to the defensive effort.
"The defence did a great job, I missed some shots I would love to make but I'll just keep working hard and hopefully they start falling."
OKC were in Dallas’ faces throughout the night and made things very difficult for the NBA World Champions. Their head coach Scott Brooks was pleased that his team had put in such physical performances and opined that it was exactly what they needed.
"This was a physical, intense, hard-fought basketball game. I'm proud of our guys for hanging in there. Dirk is the most amazing player I've ever seen but we stayed with it and we did a little better job on him in the second half. Both teams made runs in the first half and that second half was just a fight."
Durant’s deputy Russell Westbrook was also extremely effective for the Thunder. Westbrook was a thorn in the Mavericks flesh all night and ended up with team high 29 points. Kendrick Perkins scored 13 while James Harden was immense off the bench, netting 15, grabbing 7 boards and dishing out 5 assists.
The Mavericks and OKC started trading shots right after the beginning of the third quarter and the trend continued for most of the first quarter. Towards the end though the home side built up a head of steam and a 9 – 0 burst put them up 32 – 24.
The Thunder were aggressive in the following period as well and soon took their lead into double digits. With OKC up 46 – 30, Dallas launched into a 12 – 2 rally that brought them back into contention at 48 – 42. Things didn’t change till the end of the first half, when the score was 57 – 50 in Oklahoma City’s favour.
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