Oklahoma City Thunder cruise past Memphis Grizzlies 106-89: NBA Recap
Oklahoma City Thunder eased past Memphis Grizzlies 106-89 here at the Chesapeake Energy Arena on Thursday night.
Kevin Durant led Thunder with 27 points, 6 dimes, and 7 rebounds. Russell Westbrook had 21 points and 9 rebounds while Kevin Martin added 16 points going 3 of 4 from the three point range.
Jerryd Bayless led the Grizzlies with 23 points and 6 assists, Marc Gasol had 16 points and 7 rebounds while Zach Randolph fell one point shy of his double-double at 19 rebounds and 9 points. Point guard Mark Conley finished with
17 points, going 7 of 19 from the floor.
Westbrook had a little incident nearly midway through the game when he got furious at his team mates for failing to get open while he held the ball, and it resulted in a turnover and immediate benching for Westbrook for about 8
minutes.
At the end of the game, Westbrook described it “just a little miscommunication”.
"It was a disagreement," Durant said. "This is the game of basketball. You have so many different emotions on one team. You're going to have disagreements. It wasn't the first. It's not going to be the last. You've just got to
know how to respond to each other. I think we always do a great job of that."
Memphis went for a 10 nil run after the outburst to narrow down the lead and make it tight later in the third period. However, Westbrook returned and Durant took over late in the game to seal the deal for Thunder.
Earlier Oklahoma City got off to a great start and went infront quickly. Memphis missed their first 9 field attempts as Thunder carved out a 10 point lead by the end of first period. The second period was all Thunder. It was not
just their offence that was red hot, Serge Ibaka and company did a brilliant job at the defence to keep the Grizzlies to only 12 points in the frame and extend the OKC lead to 58-34 at halftime.
Grizzlies outscored the Thunder 33-21 in the third period, but their charge was stopped by Durant and company early in the fourth quarter.
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