NBA playoff scores 2017: James Harden overtakes Russell Westbrook in 4th quarter

James Harden and Russell Westbrook provided us one helluva Game 2 slugfest, albeit with a fourth quarter that will turn into the biggest talking point for the next 24 hours. Hold up — we’ll get to that in a little bit. Right now, let’s appreciate what we have in these two players.

Look at these stat lines they recorded on Wednesday. Good grief.

Over and over again, those two went at each other. At one point, Harden was shooting terribly from the floor, but he finished with a respectable 7-of-17 shooting from the floor. Westbrook’s shooting, going 4-of-18 in the fourth quarter and 17-of-43 overall, was clearly much, must different. Still, both sides gave us remarkable basketball for most of 48 minutes.

Here was one particularly absurd play from Westbrook.

Despite his stat line, though, he wasn’t really having it post-game.

Let’s talk about it, then. Let’s talk about those shots. Here were my thoughts following the game.

I am not here to defend Westbrook, because 4-of-18 no matter the circumstances is a very bad quarter. I do think that this was a Thunder-approved strategy, and Westbrook attempting to take over was their best bet — one that obviously backfired.

Consider the end of the third quarter. When Westbrook went to the bench up 86-74 with two minutes left in the third quarter, the Rockets immediately closed the quarter on a 12-3 run. Consider the lineup he finished much of the fourth quarter with: Steven Adams, Victor Oladipo, Andre Roberson, and Jerami Grant. Would you trust any of them with an open three? Roberson and Oladipo each missed wide open ones in the final five minutes.

Westbrook played a bad fourth quarter and settled for terrible shots as the clock winded down, and nobody can deny that. It’s incredible that a 51-point triple-double can be considered a bad game at this point, but anyone who takes 43 shots opens themselves up for this type of criticism. There will be a lot of takes over the next 24 hours about whether Westbrook was right, wrong, selfish, terrible, or only playing this game for himself. It’s also important to realize: to an extent, this is what the Thunder wanted.

Thunder head coach Billy Donovan could have opted for a more offensive-friendly approach, with Taj Gibson or Doug McDermott or Kyle Singler playing more minutes. But Oklahoma City knew that trying to outscore the Rockets, who had a historic offense this season, would never work. They chose to focus on defense, give Westbrook the ball, and hoped his brilliance could outplay everything.

From J.A. Sherman at Welcome to Loud City:

If you want to look at one significant microcosm of the 4th quarter struggles, note that at 3:15, it was the moment of truth. Patrick Beverley had just picked up his 5th foul, and Harden had picked up his own 5th 2 minutes earlier. It was at this moment when Billy Donovan, Westbrook, and everybody else had to redirect their game plan to accomplish one thing - to knock out one or both of those guys by drawing their 6th foul. And yet...and yet. Not a single play set was run from there on out to do such a thing. Winning in the playoffs is hard enough, but if you can’t discern how to take advantage of a glaring opportunity, especially when the game was in the balance (tie game after Beverley’s 5th) and even an overtime period quite possible, then you’ve misplayed your favorable hand.

While there’s no “draw a foul on X player” play in any team’s rule book, it did seem like the Thunder hardly even tried.

Durant missed Game 2 against the Portland Trail Blazers with a left calf strain that he could have played on, but after the injury during the season, the Warriors weren’t taking any chances with. That’s the right call, and Golden State replaced Durant through numbers, not with any singular performance.

Golden State isn’t a deep team, but they can play like one anyway when they’re at their best. There’s a level they can reach with their unselfishness and ball movement that creates open shots for every on the floor, and when that happens, there’s nothing you can do.

Durant could miss Game 3, too, but of course this isn’t anything new for the Warriors. They dropped some games early in Durant’s absence, but had a 13-game winning streak going by the time he finally did return to the lineup. The Warriors lost depth by signing Durant; they aren’t the same team that won 73 games and nearly the championship without him. But they are still exceedingly good even if they’re buoyed only by the Big Three plus Iguodala, and against a team like Portland, it was no problem at all.

The Warriors move to Portland for the next two games, and even if they don’t have Durant for both of them, they should be favored to complete the sweep with the way the first two have gone. Golden State is one of the best team’s we’ve seen in NBA history, and they can temporarily survive the loss of Durant.

The Wizards hung onto the win, despite a combined 53 fouls and 71 free throws, both up from an already foul-prone Game 1. John Wall was enormous, not taking over for a six-minute stretch like he did on Sunday, but instead contributing consistently throughout the game. He finished with 32 points on 9-of-20 shooting along with nine assists and five rebounds, and his leak out dunk with less than a minute remaining helped stave off any potential Atlanta victory.

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Sure, it’s neither team’s responsibility to make the series watchable — they have to do whatever they need to do in order to get the best chance at winning. But never has it been so easy to quarantine a series to NBA TV. If you have a rooting interest, you should be watching this series, but otherwise, it might be best to save yourself that extra hour.

Washington goes up 2-0 in the 109-101 win on Wednesday. Let’s get this series over with, because the games are a mess.

The one exception from that game above: this was so nice.

Wizards 109, Hawks 101 (Bullets Forever recap | Peachtree Hoops recap)

Rockets 115, Thunder 111 (The Dream Shake recap | Welcome To Loud City recap)

Warriors 110, Trail Blazers 81 (Golden State of Mind recap | Blazer’s Edge recap)