Russell Westbrook didn’t need a good reason to crush the Rockets’ spirit

With seven seconds left in the Thunder vs. Rockets game, Russell Westbrook decided that he wasn’t going to leave the arena without making sure Clint Capela regretted choosing basketball as a profession. I don’t know what Capela ever did to him. Maybe they have beef from the past?

Because this is the type of dunk you reserve for someone you would throw bottles at in the club.

The best thing about that dunk is that it’s totally unnecessary. Westbrook could have just held the ball. His team was up by three points with seven seconds left. All he had to do was get the pass, take the foul, make the free throws, and run the game out. But this is the child that’s always up to something. There was no way this game was ending without him converting some poor defender to nihilism by force.

I knew this would happen. I was driving home during the latter stages of the game and I had the feeling Westbrook was going to do something nefarious. I didn’t know what exactly, but my gut was telling me that he was up to no good as usual.

I felt like a parent who grows suspicious when their child is unusually quiet. All you can do is squint at them and point to your eyes with your index and middle finger to let them know that you got your eyes on them. And then they smile at you in a knowing and unnerving way, showing all of their teeth. They know that you know they’re going to do something terrible, but you’re not prepared for it.

I turned on the game and there were some odd things going on. James Harden was struggling to score. The Rockets, a Mike D’Antoni team, only scored 13 points in the fourth quarter. My cat was rotating its head around 360 degrees like it was possessed. Andre Roberson was trying to do stuff. Victor Oladipo had almost 30 points and 10 rebounds. Things were just out of whack.

Weirder still was the fact that Westbrook hadn’t tried to break someone’s body and spirit. He was playing well, but he was being suspiciously benevolent.

Then of course, with almost no time left in the game, he made sure that Capela’s phone was going to be flooded with “you alright bro? I’m here if you need anything” texts.

Westbrook is the embodiment of that new meme where Kermit is talking to a dark version of himself. The joke formula and caption usually goes like this with the picture attached:

Me: “Wants to do something nice.”

Dark me: “Do something bad instead.”

I like to imagine that before Westbrook caught the ball, he thought, “Yeah, just take the foul and end the game.” Then, when he got the pass and saw Capela under the rim, dark Westbrook whispered to him:

“Expose him. Ruin his life.”

Then he dunked on Capela so hard that D’Antoni had to get mad at the ref for not preventing it. But it’s not the ref’s fault. He’s just the bystander to a crime. There wasn’t a five-second violation, but like all catastrophic events, time slows down and a second seems to last forever when you’re in danger.

Even the Rockets bench knew something terrible was about to happen once Westbrook got the ball. They went from being very animated at the beginning of the play to being as quiet as Black Bolt once he took off. It’s like watching little school kids in a classroom right before the principal walks in. They were aware that they all needed to think of different care packages to send their teammate. Maybe a card, some fruit, a teddy bear, and a video of Robin Williams reminding Capela that it’s not his fault.

Because this is just what Russell Westbrook does. He dunks on you unnecessarily, then yells at you as you struggle to regain your balance.

That might be worse than the actual dunk, because you never did anything to him. Why is he so mean? All you wanted to do was play basketball, and now you’re going to have to avoid social media for a while because people are going to be tweeting videos of the incident with numerous flame emojis and jokes about how Westbrook made it hard for you to see a rim without being triggered.

And you were just seven seconds away from leaving the game with your dignity intact. That’s just tough.