The Heat had little trouble taking care of the Thunder in Oklahoma City on Thursday, getting out to a big lead early and cruising to a 110-100 win behind yet another dominant performance from LeBron James.
When things did begin to tighten just a bit in the fourth quarter, James made certain to hit big shot after big shot down the stretch, ensuring that the Thunder never got close enough to truly threaten the game’s ultimate result.
Miami led by 15 after one, 17 at halftime, and 19 at the end of the third quarter. The Heat jumped on OKC early, and were aided by a slow start from Kevin Durant, who missed his first seven shot attempts. By the time he really got going and scored 22 in the fourth on the way to a game-high 40, the deficit was too much to overcome.
Durant took a nasty fall in the first half, but remained in the game and seemed unaffected by it as things progressed. His huge fourth quarter was only overshadowed by James either making the shot to end the Thunder run time and again, or running the offense to perfection and setting his teammates up to do the damage instead.
Miami made only eight of its 22 attempts from the field in the fourth, but at least five of them were demoralizing buckets that were made with impeccable timing to momentarily slow a surge from OKC. Three of those came from James, including a couple of difficult buckets as the shot clock was winding down, and an alley-oop right at the rim off of an out of bounds play from under the basket.
Russell Westbrook finished with 26 points, but did most of his damage in the first half while Durant was still finding his way. He was just 2-8 from the field for six points over the final two periods, while playing just about the entire second half.
No other Thunder player finished in double figures, which may be the team’s downfall at some point in the postseason if it can’t find other players to consistently produce offensively.
This game was more about where these two teams are at this point in the season, though, than it was about making any kind of lasting statement.
The Thunder have been up and down lately, and have a record of just 7-6 in the team’s last 13 games. Miami, meanwhile, enters the All-Star break riding a seven-game winning streak, highlighted by a dominant stretch of performances from James.
Speaking of streaks, LeBron’s historical one that had him string together six straight games with 30 or more points while shooting at least 60 percent from the field ended in this one, though it very easily could have continued. James was true to his word, and played the game without worrying about his individual statistics, shooting tough shots that were heavily contested, as well as jumpers from distance — including a long three-pointer with just over a minute remaining and his team leading by 10 — that really weren’t necessary.
The Thunder will tell you they played awful for most of the night, and still closed the gap to a manageable deficit, only to have the best player in the game make tough shots to keep them at bay. And that’s true to a certain extent; maybe things would have been different had OKC not fallen behind by so many points so quickly.
The Heat, however, know that they’re playing the league’s best basketball right now. When they are engaged defensively from the opening tip as they were on Thursday, and with James continuing to dominate the way he has over the past seven games, they’re virtually unstoppable.
