On the night, when Derek Fisher faced his ex-franchise for the first time, the Oklahoma City Thunder, led by their explosive point guard Russell Westbrook, tore through the Los Angeles Lakers ….
On Thursday night, a capacity crowd at the Staples Center, Los Angeles, CA witnessed a clash between the two division leaders as the Oklahoma City Thunder visited the Los Angeles Lakers.
Russell Westbrook had a great night with 36 points as the Thunder beat lasted out the Lakers 102-93. Thunder are now 2-0 against the Lakers having beaten them already earlier in the season.
Lakers started the match of in spectacular fashion when Andrew Bynum opened the scoring on an Alley-Oop from his fellow big man Pau Gasol. Oklahoma City opened the scoring from a Sefolosha three pointer who then went on to dunk
the ball in spectacular fashion on the next possession.
The Lakers seemed not at all bothered by Bynum`s recent three point exploits. With Bynum playing very well, they went on to dominate the rest of the first quarter. Kobe Bryant had 9 points and Andrew Bynum had 8 to help the Lakers
take a 12 point lead over the OKC at the end of first period, which Lakers finished at 30-18.
The early phases of the second quarter had a similar story as the Lakers were very dominant from the start. At the midway stage of the period though, Oklahoma City behind their star forward Kevin Durant started cutting the lead
down. They only allowed the Lakers to score 4 points where as scoring 8 of their own in the last 1:53 of the half to cut the lead down to 5 points at the halfway stage (44-49).
Durant had 10 points and Westbrook had 9 points for OKC. Bryant and Bynum scored 14 and 12 respectively for the Lakers.
Thunder started the second half in style as they went on a 10-0 run. They went on the stretch their lead to 9 points before Bryant and Bynum started feeling the rhythm again to help the Lakers cut back on the lead. The problem
for the Lakers however was that from the other end, Westbrook was also feeling it. He managed to score 17 of his 36 points in the third quarter alone, helping the Thunder outscore the Lakers by 34-19 in that period.
The last quarter of the game was very closely contested as both teams were looking to run away with the game. Lakers edged out the fourth quarter only by one point, closing the game on a 14-4 run. However, Oklahoma`s lead proved
to be too much to handle in the end as the Thunder took this one 102-93.
Westbrook put up great numbers, scoring 36 points and dishing out 6 assists. Kevin Durant had a good night as well with 21 points and 5 assists. Bynum had a 25 points, 13 rebound night and Kobe Bryant managed 23 points for the
game.
On his coming home game Derek Fisher, who was given a standing ovation from the Staples Centre crowd, managed to score 7 points, a rather good performance as compared to what his scoring stats has been this season. The Lakers failed
to capitalize on a good start as they lost to Oklahoma giving the Thunder their 5th win in a row.
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