Ibaka, Westbrook and Durant abused the stat sheet last night. |
51. 40. 14, 15, 11. Those are just a random set of numbers, no order, no sequence, no continuity. They are just numbers. But, when you put them in the context of last night's Oklahoma City/Denver game, they become meaningful and downright astonishing. Kevin Durant reached the 50-pt plateau for the first time in his career, while Russell Westbrook helped out with 40 more points, and finally Serge Ibaka rounded them all out with his first triple double(14 points, 15 boards, 11 blocks). When read this stat sheet my jaw dropped to the floor.
Two players combining for 91 points. That means that both Westbrook and Durant we're having once-in-a-lifetime scoring nights, cohesively. It's something not even Dwyane Wade and Lebron James have even come close to doing. Not only were Durant and Westbrook having superb individual nights, they were doing it as teammates, as friends, as superstars and most importantly as winners. Everyone has been clamoring over how Westbrook takes shots away from Durant, guess when they combine for 91 you cannot complain.
Last night's statistical oddity was the third time in NBA history that two teammates went for 40+ in the same game. One of those games took three overtimes, this one only took one. Now you're probably assuming these guys shot the you know what out of the ball, but their percentages were actually extremely impressive. Combined they were 35 of 57 from the field(61%) and from deep they were an incredible 8-12 (67%). This means neither guy was forcing their shots or attempting to overplay in order to take over the game. Both played within their system and caught fire. It was a simple case of right players, right night.
Don't overlook Serge Ibaka who had his first career triple-double by adding 11 blocks to his 14 points and 15 rebounds. I'm pretty sure he was the only one playing defense in this wildly high scoring 124-118 game. Add this all-around solid performance to the ridiculous scoring of Durant and Westbrook and you have probably one of the greatest games, if not the greatest game, ever played by three teammates. When you look at the box score, a year, 5 years, 10 years from now you're going to be just as impressed if you actually watched the game.
On February 19th, 2012 at the Chesapeake Energy Arena, a stat sheet was murdered.
People are picking the Big Three in Miami to win it all, might want to think again, a new Big Three is emerging quickly in OKC.
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