Russell Westbrook continued his season-long offensive rampage on Tuesday, setting a new career high with 58 points, including 30 after halftime. Unfortunately, even that monster effort wasn’t enough to push the Oklahoma City Thunder over the finish line.
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Guards Damian Lillard, C.J. McCollum and Allen Crabbe combined for 66 points, and newly acquired center Jusuf Nurkic came up with several big buckets down the stretch in the fourth quarter to give the Portland Trail Blazers just enough of a boost to outlast Westbrook for a 126-121 win over the Thunder at Chesapeake Energy Arena.
While Westbrook exerted his typical dominance over the Thunder offense, scoring nearly as many points (58) as the rest of his teammates combined (63) and dishing the only nine assists logged by any Thunder starter, Portland benefited from a more egalitarian approach. Seven Blazers scored in double figures, led by Crabbe’s 23 points on 7-for-10 shooting, including a 5-for-7 mark from 3-point land, to go with four rebounds and two assists in 28 minutes off Terry Stotts’ bench.
Crabbe and Lillard (22 points, eight assists, three rebounds) carried the Portland offense through the first three quarters, and McCollum (eight of his 21 in the fourth) and Nurkic (eight of his 17 in the fourth, including a big basket with 31 seconds left to put the Blazers up four) shouldered the load late for the Blazers, who gave up 40 points in the first quarter and trailed by as many as 14 before coming back strong. They have now won three straight to improve to 27-35, and sit just 1 1/2 games behind the idle Denver Nuggets in the race for the Western Conference’s eighth and final playoff seed.
Trailing by two with 55 seconds left, Oklahoma City had a chance to tie or take the lead. But Westbrook missed a 15-footer, and after Taj Gibson corralled the offensive rebound to give the Thunder another crack, Westbrook quickly launched an open but early-shot-clock 3-pointer that went awry, allowing Portland to dodge danger.
After a tough interior bucket by Nurkic on the other end followed by a triple by the just-returned-from-injury Victor Oladipo (on a honey of an after-timeout play drawn up by Thunder coach Billy Donovan, we might add) and a pair of clutch free throws by McCollum, Oklahoma City trailed 122-119 with 15 seconds to go. Once again, the Thunder were able to get a clean look coming out of the timeout, with Westbrook racing to the ball and having a few feet of room without a Blazer defender in his field of vision. But again, he went kind of early in casting off from deep, and his 28-footer caught iron, forcing OKC to foul with 11 seconds to go and ending the threat.
The Thunder have now lost four straight to fall to 35-29. They sit in seventh place in the West, a full five games behind the Utah Jazz in the race for the conference’s No. 4 seed and home-court advantage in the opening round of the playoffs.
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