Thunder overcome Damian Lillard's 51 in wild, testy OT win over Trail Blazers
The calendar reads March, but Thursday’s game between the Oklahoma City Thunder and Portland Trail Blazers looked like a playoff game.
The Thunder pulled out a a testy overtime win in Portland that saw double technical fouls at the end of regulation after repeated physical contact between Paul George and Jusuf Nurkic.
Lillard’s 51 not enough
Trail Blazers guard Damian Lillard scored a career-high 51, but overtime belonged to OKC’s Russell Westbrook, who scored eight points in the extra session of the 129-121 win. The Thunder outscored the Blazers in the extra session, 16-8 while holding them to 2-for-9 shooting from the field.
Portland played the overtime session without Nurkic, who was ejected at the end of regulation after picking up his second technical foul.
Nurkic, George go at it
Nurkic and George were each called for technicals with 4.4 seconds remaining when the two made physical contact after Jerami Grant committed a personal foul on Nurkic on an offensive rebound with the Thunder leading by two.
After the foul, Nurkic lightly head-butted George, who was in his face after the two had made contact in the post. The two exchanged shoves and were given technical fouls.
George had hit Nurkic with an elbow on the previous Thunder possession that was not called a foul.
The technical was Nurkic’s second of the game after he had an altercation with Westbrook in the first half.
Nurkic got into it with Westbrook, too
Westbrook shoved Nurkic near halfcourt with around 3:15 remaining in the half as the two trailed a Trail Blazers fast break after making contact under the basket at the end of the previous play.
The interaction earned a technical foul for Nurkic for impeding Westbrook’s progress and a flagrant for Westbrook for the shove.
Wild end to regulation
After Nurkic was ejected at the end of regulation, Oklahoma City got to choose who shot the free throws in his place for the Grant personal foul.
Skal Labissiere missed the first and intentionally missed the second with the Thunder leading 113-111.
Thunder forward Markieff Morris committed a loose ball foul on the rebound, sending Al-Farouq Aminu to the free throw line, where he hit both shots to tie the game and force overtime.
But the Blazers were no match for the Thunder in the extra session missing one of their best players. Nurkic finished the game with 13 points and 17 rebounds, but his absence was apparent in overtime.
Westbrook finished with 37 points, 7 rebounds, 3 assists and 8 turnovers for OKC, while George tallied 32 points, 14 rebounds and 6 assists.
Playoff preview?
With the win, the Thunder held onto the No. 4 seed in the Western Conference playoff race – one game ahead of the Blazers -- while completing a four-game sweep of the season series.
If this ends up being a playoff preview, there will be bad blood carried into the first-round series.
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