“It reminded me of six-year-old basketball that I just coached where only a couple of kids were strong enough to get the ball to the rim.”
The king of crooked stat lines struck again Wednesday night as Russell Westbrook recorded the highest scoring triple-double in postseason history while missing 26 shots (17/43) in the process.
His wretched fourth quarter, which included four of 18 shooting, was lowlighted by one stretch where he took 12 consecutive shots for the Thunder.
Clay Travis says there’s nothing historical about Westbrook performance unless you’re going to call it historically dubious.
“It’s the worst performance ever by a guy who scored 50 points,” Travis said. “For most of the fourth quarter Russell Westbrook’s entire offensive game plan was, ‘it doesn’t matter how bad this shot is, I’m going to throw it up at the rim and the only way OKC is going to score is if my guys can get the rebound and put it back in.’”
At the end of the day, a triple-double is just a statistical anomaly with a catchy label; something the rest of the Thunder players have found out the hard way.
“People say, ‘well, he doesn’t have any other talent around him’. How would you know if you shoot 4 of 18? He said. “As impressive as that triple-double record is, it’s a total function of how bad Oklahoma City is as much as it is how good Russell Westbrook is.”