The Oklahoma City Thunder, owners of the best record in the league at 37-10, come to Brooklyn tonight for their only outer-borough appearance of the year.
The Thunder’s newly anointed ‘Slim Reaper’ Kevin Durant is on an amazing streak even for him. The one-time Texas Longhorn has scored over 30 points in each of the last 12 contests, something not done since T-Mac went 14 games over 30 in the ’02-’03 campaign. KD is averaging 38 ppg over this span of a dozen 48s.
Without PG Russell Westbrook, Durant’s sizzling play has led OKC to a nine-game winning streak, longest in the Association.
Coach Scott Brooks’ guys went to South Beach on Wednesday night to play the defending champs and came away with a 112-95 W after trailing early by 18 points. PF Serge Ibaka poured in 20 points and the second-oldest player in the league, Derek Fisher, had a season-best 15 points in the Sunshine State victory.
Even with the Thunder’s spectacular play of late, no team in the NBA has less than 3 losses in January except for the Brooklyn Nets. The 20-23 Nets are 10-2 this month with both defeats administered by the Toronto Raptors.
In fact, Brooklyn last played on Monday night when Toronto ended their 5-game winning streak with a 104-103 home loss. Paul Pierce shot for a season-high 33 points, but missed a tough 3-bomb at the buzzer.
These two sides matched up on January 2nd in Oklahoma City with Brooklyn earning their best win of the season to that point. The Nets’ team D kept KD from going off, holding him to only 24 points. In fact, since Xmas, this was one of only 2 occasions that the NBA scoring leader failed to break 30. Not only did coach Jason Kidd’s team play tough D, but they came back from a 10-point deficit in the final seven minutes and won 95-93 when Joe Johnson’s jumper at the buzzer connected. In addition, PG Deron Williams scored a season-high 29 points in the Sooner State upset.
Tune in to YES Network at 8PM ET to see if Brooklyn can come away with the win against an OKC team that has yet to lose on the road to an Eastern Conference foe.
When 3X NBA All-Star Russell Westbrook put up a triple-double in a Christmas day thrashing of the Knicks at MSG, Oklahoma City fans surely thought their super-athletic ringleader was close to 100% after two off-season right knee surgeries.