Oklahoma City Thunder decimate Los Angeles Clippers on Derek Fisher’s debut - NBA Recap
On Wednesday night, Oklahoma City Thunder grabbed a surprisingly convenient victory against Los Angeles Clippers, 114-91 here at the Chesapeake Energy Arena.
Kevin Durant was on song as he tallied a game high 32 points to go with 9 rebounds while guard Russell Westbrook chipped in with 19 points. Serge Ibaka poured in 15 and had 8 boards while James Harden collected 10 points coming off the bench.
Newly acquired point guard Derek Fisher played for 20 minutes and scored 5 points. He signed the contract with the franchise just 2 hours prior to the game.
Thunder were impressive from the charity stripe as they connected on 95.5% while Clippers netted 77.8%. Oklahoma City clamped down LAC completely on the night allowing only 2 lead changes and 2 ties in the game.
Thunder head coach Scott Brooks praised the efforts displayed by his team.
“Defensively I thought we played good throughout the game. You wanna contest shots and we did that. Serge (Ibaka) and Nick (Collison) did a great job on (Blake Griffin) you just wanna stay between him and the basket. We even made his catches very tough."
Los Angeles skidded down to a 2game losing streak after this game; they were led by Randy Foye with 23 points while Chris Paul recorded a double-double with 13 points and 10 assists.
Guard Nick Young had 12 and Maurice Williams collected 11 points coming off the bench for the Clips who will face the New Orleans Hornets next.
Thunder took an 18-10 lead early in the opening frame. Clippers displayed a resilient show in the ensuing passage and tied the scores at 29 each deep into the frame. OKC created a breathing space with a 4-1mini-run to cap of the segment with a slender 33-30 advantage.
LAC narrowed the gap to 36-35 early in the 2nd period but Oklahoma blasted away with a 16-4 spurt for a double digit, 52-39, advantage. They cruised through rest of the quarter and Clippers could only come as close as 58-50 before Thunder came up with 8-nothing to conclude the 1st half with a 66-50 lead.
Clippers after playing 8 games in 11 days were fatigued and it started to reflect on their performance in the 2nd half.
The hosts widened the gap to 78-61 midway through the frame. The striving Clippers couldn’t tone down the double digit lead till the end of segment. As the game entered into its decisive frame Oklahoma City were leading by 88-71.
Clippers had still some fight left in them as they opened the 4th with 9 unanswered points, trimming down the lead to 79-88 but that didn’t help them at all. Oklahoma rebutted that with a huge 19-6 spurt and with 4:17 in hand they had taken an unquestionable 107-85 lead.
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