TORONTO (AP) —Paul George scored 28 points, Russell Westbrook had 18 points, 13 assists and 12 rebounds, and the Oklahoma City Thunder beat the Toronto Raptors 116-109 on Friday night.
Dennis Schroder came off the bench to score 26 points and Jerami Grant had 19 as the Thunder snapped a four-game losing streak and avenged Wednesday’s 123-114 home defeat to Toronto.
The Thunder made 20 of 43 shots from 3-point range. Oklahoma City made a season-high 22 3-pointers against the Lakers on Jan. 17.
Lowry missed his second straight game because of a sprained right ankle. Coach Nick Nurse said there’s no structural damage to Lowry’s ankle, but soreness remains following a collision with New York’s Mitchell Robinson on Monday. Nurse said Lowry is expected to return next week.
Danny Green scored 19 points and Serge Ibaka had 11 but Toronto couldn’t hold a double-digit lead in the third quarter for the second straight game. The Raptors gave away a 20-point lead before recovering to win in overtime Wednesday, but weren’t able to match that on their home court.
Oklahoma City trailed by 10 points to start the second half, and was down 13 with 5:23 to go in the third before rallying. Westbrook gave the visitors the lead for the first time since early in the first quarter on a layup with 1:18 left in the period, putting them up 80-79. The Thunder closed the third with a 20-4 run to take an 83-80 lead into the fourth.
Leonard cut the gap to 93-91 on a free throw with 7:33 to play but George hit 3-pointers on either side of a fast-break layup by Grant, giving Oklahoma City a 101-91 edge with 6:21 left.
The Thunder missed eight of their first 10 shots of the game. Toronto was 5 of 6 from 3-point range in the first, with Green making all three of his attempts, and the Raptors led 29-22 after one.
Leonard scored nine points in the second and Green had six as Toronto led 58-48 at halftime.
Round 2: Raptors, Thunder meet in Toronto after wild one in OKC
ASSOCIATED PRESS — The Toronto Raptors needed overtime to win at Oklahoma City on Wednesday night after squandering a 19-point lead.
Now they see what they can do at home when the teams meet again on Friday night.
The Raptors, who led by as many as 19 points during the third quarter, still led the Thunder by 11 with less than 2:30 to play in regulation on Wednesday. But the Thunder tied it at 110 on Russell Westbrook‘s driving layup with 4.8 seconds to play.
The Raptors, however, rebounded to dominate the overtime 13-4 as the Thunder’s Paul George watched from the bench after fouling out with 19.9 seconds left in regulation. Toronto won the game 123-114.
“You’ve got to finish regardless of the circumstances or whatever is going on,” Raptors coach Nick Nurse told reporters after the game. “You just have got to keep playing. A lot of times when you blow a big lead and go to OT that momentum has already gone to the team that got it to OT and you go flat. We didn’t. We came out and really played, especially on the defensive end and that’s a really good sign.”
The Thunder will be trying for a better start Friday night.
“We were playing from behind too much,” Thunder coach Billy Donovan said after the game Wednesday. “I mentioned about the adversity and the challenges. This is a really, really good team, and you just can’t really have lapses for a quarter or coming out of the locker room because you end up having to play from behind.”
The Thunder got 42 points and 11 rebounds from Westbrook. Pascal Siakam led Toronto with 33 points and 13 rebounds while Fred VanVleet scored 23 points starting at point guard for Kyle Lowry, who was out with a right ankle injury. Lowry has been declared out of the game Friday.
The Thunder have lost four games in a row.
“The start of the third we did not do a good enough job defensively,” Donovan said. “We had turnovers, possessions that were not great offensively. We made enough plays to get ourselves back in the game. I give our guys a lot of credit. We were out of the game with two minutes to go.”
The Raptors have won two in a row and are coming off a solid defensive effort Wednesday.
“Everyone talked, everyone was in the gaps, everyone was unselfish,” Raptors center Marc Gasol said. “They are going to make shots but we have got to finish it off. … It’s a learning lesson and later on in the playoffs that can cost you a game and you don’t want that happening in the playoffs.”
In the overtime, Gasol said “we picked it up a little more.”
“We had that lead late in regulation and then we didn’t make stand. They made some tough shots at the same time,” he added.
A key factor in the outcome was the poor free-throw shooting by the Thunder (15-for-29, 51.7 percent).
“We’ve got to shoot better than 51.7 percent from the free-throw line,” Donovan said. “I think we’re getting answers to things that we’re going to have to do at a high level.”
The Raptors had Serge Ibaka back in the lineup Wednesday after he served a three-game suspension for fighting. He had six points and nine rebounds in a reserve role with Gasol starting and scoring 10 points and grabbing six rebounds. The Raptors have yet to determine who will be the regular starting center.
Three Things to Know: Warriors cranking up defense as playoffs near
Every day in the NBA there is a lot to unpack, so every weekday morning throughout the season we will give you the three things you need to know from the last 24 hours in the NBA.
1) Warriors cranking up their defense as playoffs near, just ask the Pacers. Golden State’s defense this season has been like the team in general: There some nights and not others. Inconsistent. Blame injuries or lack of depth or just boredom, but on the season the Warriors have been a middle of the pack defensive team.
No longer. Starting to focus on good habits before the playoffs, the Warriors have cranked up the defense of late, with a defensive net rating of 100.7 in their last five games (just over a point per possession), and they are smothering teams. Such as the Pacers. A scrappy Indiana team scored less than 20 points in two quarters and the Warriors cruised to a 112-89 win Thursday night. The Warriors held the Pacers to 24 percent shooting in the first quarter, 32.7 percent in the first half.
Draymond Green remains the guy who makes the defense work, and DeMarcus Cousins now provides a big body in the paint to deter shots, but the Warriors defense really works best when players such as Kevin Durant and Stephen Curry are engaged. Of late, they have been.
Offensively against the Pacers, DeMarcus Cousins led the way with 19 points and 11 boards.
One of the best moments of the night was the warm welcome Andrew Bogut got in his return to Golden State.
Thursday’s win keeps the Warriors half a game ahead of the Nuggets (who also won Wednesday) for the top seed in the West.
2) The bottom half of the West is a seeding battle royal — Jazz, Thunder, Clippers, Spurs all tied in seeds 5-8. Utah had a chance to create a little space in the standings Thursday night, but their legs just got stuck in the mud in Atlanta. After a stellar third quarter, the Jazz looked like a team on the second night of a back-to-back playing their third game in four nights in the fourth, and the Hawks pulled away behind Trae Young (who did more damage with his 11 assists than his shot on the night) to get the win.
With this loss, there is now a four-way tie in seeds 5-8 in the West — Oklahoma City, San Antonio, Utah, and the L.A. Clippers are all 42-30.
This is going to make the final 10 games fun to watch.
Seeding matters. Nobody wants to be the eight seed and get Golden State in the first round (this assumes the Warriors don’t get bored and let Denver get the top seed, but the Nuggets have a much tougher schedule the rest of the way). When I asked Portland coach Terry Stotts about trying to think about playoff matchups in the first round of the West, he said there would be no easy ones in the deep conference so sharp play and momentum are what mattered, and he spoke for pretty much every coach on that front.
How is this going to shake out? The Thunder have by far the toughest schedule, one of the most difficult in the league the rest of the way. The Jazz have the easiest schedule of any team in the West in their remaining games, the Spurs have the second easiest. But nothing about this season has been predictable, this will not be either.
3) Did Ja Morant play his way into being the No. 2 pick in the draft? The NBA world, like the sports world in general, was talking about the triple-double by Murray State’s Ja Morant in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. He was impressive.
Did Morant play his way into being the No. 2 pick? (Zion Williamson is a lock at No. 1.) Actually, Morant may have done that before Thursday — he had a strong regular season — and Thursday was more of a reinforcement.
Whether Morant or R.J. Barrett or some surprise player goes second in the draft will come down to the draft lottery and who gets that No. 2 pick. Is it Phoenix or New York, teams in desperate need of a point guard? If the Hawks or Cavaliers land the No. 2 pick, are they looking more at Barrett? It’s too early to say, and it depends on those teams’ internal draft boards and how they rate players.
But Morant is in the mix, and may now be the frontrunner.
Nick Collison: Thunder should retire Kevin Durant’s number
Kevin Durant made himself public enemy No. 1 in Oklahoma City by leaving the Thunder for the Warriors three years ago.
Nick Collison, on the other hand, remains beloved in Oklahoma City. Like Durant, he moved with the franchise from Seattle. But Collison stayed until retiring last year.
With the Thunder retiring his number yesterday, Collison vouched for his former teammate.
Kevin Durant gave you the nickname “Mr. Thunder.” Do you think the Thunder should eventually retire No. 35?
It’s their decision to make, but I would certainly think so. He’s meant a ton to Thunder basketball and spent a huge majority of his career here. A lot of these honors are just kind of what the team decides to do, and I think players are appreciative of them. I don’t get too worked up about it. I’ll let other people debate that, but to me, he’s a big part of what we did here.
The Thunder will probably retire Durant’s number. Time heals most wounds, likely including this one.
Durant spent eight seasons in Oklahoma City. He won MVP and made five All-NBA first teams and an All-NBA second team there. He helped the Thunder win 10 playoff series.
No matter when each player retires, Oklahoma City will almost certainly retire Russell Westbrook‘s number first. He’s the one who stayed.
But some time after that, I’d bet on Durant getting his number retired.
Did Oklahoma City fan yell n-word at Pascal Siakam? (video)
Pascal Siakam was awesome in the Raptor’s win over the Thunder yesterday. The Most Improved Player favorite had 33 points, 13 rebounds, six assists, two steals and a block.
He also shot free throws as an Oklahoma City fan shouted something:
Did the fan yell the n-word? Did she yell “Nader,” as in Thunder Thunder forward Abdel Nader? Did she yell something else entirely?
I can’t tell. It’s a noisy arena, and she wasn’t speaking directly into the microphone.
Her shouting drew the attention of a couple Toronto players, though.
The Thunder should investigate this. Talk to arena workers who were in the area. Maybe fans, too. Racist jeers obviously shouldn’t be tolerated.
I’d be surprised if she shouted the n-word without it immediately becoming a major incident, though. As the Donald Sterling saga reminded us, that’s the type of racism is not tolerated by society. Discrimination in housing and employment – things that destroy lives – get ignored. People can get away with coded racist language and terms with racist undertones some are ignorant to. But get publicly exposed saying something clearly racist – especially the n-word – and a firestorm usually erupts.
Some have suggested she couldn’t have been yelling “Nader” because he wasn’t in the game. That doesn’t hold up. Fans often yell at players on the bench.
Again, I don’t know what she said. VanVleet’s and Siakam’s interest should prompt the Thunder to investigate and explain their findings.
