Thunder 113 – Lakers 96 | Rapid Recap

The Thunder GuysOctober 31, 2016 No Comments

The Thunder continued to keep things rolling early in the season with a 113-96 win over the Los Angeles Lakers tonight. After yet another slow start, the team rallied back in a big way at the end of the first quarter to take the lead. After that, it was all Oklahoma City. While the Lakers did cut into the lead a few times, the Thunder maintained their cool and stayed in control of the game.

Ball Movement Helps Offense

As a team, the Thunder moved the ball tonight about as well as I’ve ever seen them. The quick passes which lead to open looks is a lot better than the stagnant isolation offense we have seen in the past. The Thunder finished with a total of 29 assist tonight, which is six more than the average from last season.

The ability to move the ball around to get open looks for guys took a huge load off of Russell Westbrook’s shoulders. Even though Westbrook finished the game with 33 points, he didn’t need to score more than 25 tonight for Oklahoma City to come out on top.

Weaknesses Turned to Strengths

You can definitely consider the Thunder’s win tonight a complete team efort. Four guys finished in double-digit scoring, and Andre Roberson was a close fifth with 8 points. The Thunder shot 35% from beyond the arc, which was supposed to be an area of struggle this year. This is largely due to the amount of open looks the team got because of excellent ball movement.

As far as the defense goes for the Thunder, they had struggled throughout the first two games. Tonight, that was not the case. Oklahoma City held Los Angeles to 40% shooting and shut down the Laker perimeter game where they only shot 22%. Victor Oladipo and Kyle Singler played perimeter defense tonight, and Steven Adams clogged up the paint with 3 steals and 2 blocks.

Westbrook Makes History Again

The Brodie is not new to making history at this point of his career, but for us Thunder fans, it never gets old. The favorite for league MVP recorded 33 points, 16 assists, and 12 rebounds tonight. Russell Westbrook is one of only four players in the last thirty years to have 100-30-30 over any 3-game span. Not only is he one of only four to do it, he has done it twice in the last two seasons.

 Next Up

The Thunder will be back in action again on Wednesday night as they travel to Los Angeles to play the Clippers. The game will start at 9:30 PM CST and will be televised on FSOK and ESPN. It will also be broadcast on the radio on WWLS 98.1 FM.

Article written by Craig Hofeld. Follow @TheThunderGuys on Twitter. 

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