Thunder Crush Nuggets 125-93, Advance to Western Conference Finals
The Denver Nuggets won game six at home to push the Oklahoma City Thunder to the brink, but the Thunder dominated game seven, 125-93, to advance to the Western Conference Finals for the first time since 2016. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander authored another exceptional performance, pouring in a game-high 35 points (just three short of his playoff career-high) on 12-19 field goal shooting while dishing out four assists. Jalen Williams, who struggled for significant portions of this series, scored 24 points and passed for a game-high tying seven assists. Chet Holmgren added 13 points and a game-high tying 11 rebounds. Alex Caruso chipped in 11 points on 5-7 field goal shooting, but his game-high +40 plus/minus number hints at the large impact that he had beyond the boxscore numbers: he was a menace as an on-ball defender versus Denver's perimeter players, he swarmed the passing lanes as a help defender, and on several possessions he even guarded Nikola Jokic one on one.
Jokic had a solid game by normal human standards--20 points, nine rebounds, game-high tying seven assists--but the Thunder's suffocating defense shut down his teammates without giving him the space to do much damage as a scorer. Jokic had a game-high five turnovers, and it often looked like the Thunder had an extra defensive player on the court; the Nuggets struggled to complete a pass, and they shot just 33-84 (.393) from the field, including 10-45 (.222) from three point range. Christian Braun scored 19 points on 7-14 field goal shooting. Aaron Gordon limped through a grade two hamstring strain--Jokic said that he told Gordon to not play because he risked making the injury even more serious--to finish with eight points and a game-high tying 11 rebounds. Jamal Murry had just 13 points on 6-16 field goal shooting. No other Nugget scored more than six points, and it is worth noting that Gilgeous-Alexander outscored the Nuggets' top two players--Jokic and Murray--by himself.
Russell Westbrook is the eighth highest paid Nugget ($3.3 million, the minimum salary for a 10 year veteran), but the "experts" and the
social media crowd will no doubt find some way to pin the loss on him.
I've never heard of a team's eighth highest paid player being the
deciding factor between winning and losing as the fourth seeded team versus a dominant top seeded 68 win
team, but ridiculous anti-Westbrook narratives have become standard fare
in NBA circles. For the series, Westbrook ranked fifth on the team in scoring (9.9 ppg), eighth in rebounds (2.7 rpg), sixth in minutes played (22.7 mpg), and tied for fourth in assists (2.4 apg). He has always been a rhythm player who is used to having the ball in his hands, so those numbers are in line with his role and his salary slot. His shooting splits (.348/.219/.696) were poor, but only three Nuggets who played rotation minutes shot better than .440 from the field (Nikola Jokic, Julian Strawther, Aaron Gordon) so the Thunder deserve credit for shutting down the Nuggets' offense. Westbrook averaged 11.7 ppg in the 2025 playoffs (fifth on the team) while contributing 2.6 apg (fourth), 3.7 rpg (sixth) and .9 spg (fourth) with .391/.317/.700 shooting splits. Westbrook has a player option for $3.5 million next season, and it is unlikely that the cash-strapped Nuggets can find a more productive player at that price.
The Thunder outscored the Nuggets 64-42 in the paint, 27-14 on the fast break, and 37-7 in points off of turnovers. The Nuggets jumped out to a 21-10 lead at the 5:31 mark of the first quarter before the Thunder reeled them in and then ran them into the ground; the Thunder ended the second quarter with a 28-14 run to take a 60-46 halftime lead, and the Thunder opened the third quarter by outscoring the Nuggets 21-12 to end all resistance. The Thunder pushed the margin as high as 43 points late in the fourth quarter, and the outcome was never in doubt throughout the second half.
The Nuggets used their size to dominate the paint in a 121-119 game one win to seize homecourt advantage, and the Nuggets led the series 2-1 after prevailing 113-104 in game three but, as is usually the case in a seven game series, the team with the most matchup advantages prevailed. I picked the Thunder to win in six games because I expected that the Thunder's "suffocating defense will rule the day," and even though it took the Thunder seven games instead of six the seventh game highlighted the huge gap between these teams: the Thunder have the right personnel and game plan to at least contain Jokic at times, while the Nuggets can barely run a functioning halfcourt offense versus the Thunder's relentless pressure. ESPN's Scott Van Pelt often referred to the Thunder as a "wagon" during the regular season, but in game seven the Thunder looked like a high speed train racing past a broken down jalopy.
Labels: Aaron Gordon, Alex Caruso, Denver Nuggets, Jalen Williams, Jamal Murray, Nikola Jokic, Oklahoma City Thunder, Russell Westbrook, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander
posted by David Friedman @ 8:40 AM
12 Comments:
Westbrook was awful in this series. The Ramona Shelburne article may have affected his spirit somewhat, whether that piece was fair or not. His play this series is absolutely not a referendum on his career, as he is easily a top 50-60 player ever and a first ballot hall of famer. There were years where I wasn't sure who was more impactful between him and Durant, so I don't mean to sound like a hater. And yes, most of the Denver role players were also awful as you noted. Jokic made a comment after the game that the deeper teams all made the conference finals - the NBA is somewhat shifting away from the importance of your best player, to the importance of the 8 man group.
All that said, he's only making 3.3 million for a reason. He had good moments even this season but he's way past his prime, and he hasn't really shown that he can elevate ceilings for any team since his prime OKC days. I would take just about every rotation role player still left in the playoffs over him if I was trying to win a championship, even if they can't stuff a stat sheet like Russ. This last decade he's been most valuable as a floor raiser for bad teams, or good teams that are missing their star player(s).
I don't think it's Westbrook's "fault" entirely but the story of the series was that OKC had a bench and the Nuggets did not, and certainly Westbrook is a part of that story. He had by far the worst +- of anyone in the series at -92, with Peyton Watson second at -70. No one else in the second round was worse than -41. The total margin of the series was Thunder +54, and the Nuggets starting lineup won their minutes for the series by 34 points, so the series was pretty literally lost when Denver had its bench guys on the court, and especially when it had the two of them together.
OKC taking advantage of Westbrook's inability to shoot and playing 5-on-4 defensively was part of it, but I think the actual moral of the story is that if you need a veteran minimum point guard who hasn't shot better than 42% from the field in a playoff run since 2012 to carry your bench by himself, then you didn't build a very good bench. Westbrook didn't succeed, but he also wasn't set up to succeed.
He probably does still have some value as a bench sparkplug on a team with enough defenders and shooters to cover for his limitations, or enough other bench scorers to at least share the load, but the Nuggets are one of the teams that least fits that description in the entire league. Under normal circumstances, they have two guys on the roster who both shoot and defend well in Gordon and Braun, and only one more positive defender at all in Watson, who's atrocious offensively. In this series, Braun couldn't hit the broadside of a barn, either, so really Gordon was their only real two-way presence. You can get away with that if Jokic, Murray, and MPJ are all on the court because they just generate so much offensive firepower between them, but as soon as even one of those guys sits down the cracks start to show and once two of them do it gets dire fast.
As great as Jokic is, playing him and Westbrook together also ended up being kind of diminishing returns for all involved, because only one of them can have the ball at a time, and because both the Clippers and Thunder just relentlessly targeted that combo in the pick and roll to pretty good success. Jokic was -40 for the series, but he was -63 with Westbrook and -52 with Watson, so he won his minutes handily otherwise. Add Murray and the trio still ran -32 for the Westbrook version, while Jokic/Murray/Watson was even worse at -35.
Yeah yeah, I know, +- can be noisy, but I think in this case it's pretty much telling the truth: Denver couldn't survive as soon a starter left the court, even if they still had their best two guys on it. Part of that is OKC being super deep, yes, but part of it also poor construction on Denver's part.
When they won the title in 2023, they had a functional bench trio of Bruce Brown, Jeff Green, and now-starter Braun, but they let Brown (and KCP) walk, Green aged out of relevance and also walked, and they promoted Braun to take KCP's old slot. Trying to paper over those absences with an aging volume scorer PG and an untested rookie defender was, politely, a risk, and one that ultimately didn't pay off.
Anonymous:
Westbrook is currently a bench player on a minimum salary. It is not fair to compare him now to max contract players who play 35-40 mpg and have the ball in their hands all of the time.
I don't know if you are the same person who previously (quite some time ago) referred to Westbrook as a "floor raiser," which supposedly contrasts with a player who can lead a team to a title, but that concept does not make sense. Players are either productive or non-productive, and that calculation is based upon their role and their opportunities. I don't know if Westbrook can still average a triple double (I would assume not, but I don't know for sure), but I know that no one can average a triple double while playing less than 25 mpg as a team's fourth, fifth or sixth option.
The Nuggets signed Westbrook to add energy and veteran leadership. He works hard off of the court, he plays hard on the court, and there is no evidence that he does not accept his role (I disregard "anonymous" sources cited by "journalists" who have agendas). There are several examples of Westbrook making plays that directly impacted winning, including during the playoffs. Yes, it would be great if Westbrook shot a better percentage and turned the ball over less frequently, but those statistics are the flip side of the manic energy with which he plays. For most of this season and the playoffs, he was Denver's best bench player. One can say that is an indictment of the quality of Denver's bench, but that is not Westbrook's fault.
Anonymous:
How many players in the NBA provided more value this season relative to their contract and their role than Westbrook? I honestly don't know the answer because I have not spent time looking at the statistics of every minimum salary player in the league, but I doubt that there are many who served as the best bench player on a top four seeded team. The Nuggets paid Westbrook to fill a specific role and he did what they paid him to do.
Nuggets management might want to take a closer look at the guys other than Jokic who are being paid the biggest bucks and who are expected to be consistently in shape, healthy, and productive.
First off, I don’t believe I’ve commented on Westbrook before.
“Productive or non-productive” is an overly simplistic view in my opinion. There has to be a synergy amongst championship lineups. While Westbrook is more productive than 90% of the NBA (in terms of box score stats) he isn’t as efficient or impactful as the 10% that can produce like him (post-prime that is).
For the other 90% (role players), he struggles to match the average rotation player’s shooting and defense. This creates an awkward playoff dynamic where he isn’t good enough as a creator to have the ball in his hands in high-level playoff series, and he isn’t good enough as a role player to provide the same level of synergy as other teams role players. It’s a bit like DeMar Derozan, although again I should emphasize that I’m referring to Westbrook post 2017.
That said, he could maybe get the Washington Wizards 5-10 extra wins because they are a bad team, and they don’t have better creators. Other role players almost certainly couldn’t do that because they don’t have the lead guard skills of Westbrook.
I agree that Denver’s bench was terrible and that he should really not receive any blame for the series. Like you said, you can’t blame a 3.3 million dollar player. MPJ is a far bigger problem for them. But it can’t be both ways where he’s some super valuable role player (he isn’t, or else he’d be making more than 3.3 million), but also he’s completely blameless for playing so terribly in the series.
I don’t hold the Shelburne piece against Westbrook, but (just speculating) he played particularly terrible after that story was published. He had good moments in R1 vs LAC, to be fair.
Anonymous:
The Nuggets did not sign Westbrook to a minimum contract for his shooting, or for him to anchor their defense. They signed him to provide energy, to be a secondary playmaker/ballhandler, to provide some scoring punch off of the bench, and to rebound better than his size/position--and he did all of those things.
Who could the Nuggets have signed for $3.3 million/year that could provide the "synergy" that you assert is lacking from Westbrook?
ESPN is a four letter acronym/word that has no connection to high level journalism; the focus--as the first letter explicitly states--is on "Entertainment," and it has long been evident that many of ESPN's writers have personal or professional agendas that influence what they say (and don't say). Nikola Jokic has publicly lauded Westbrook, and I take Jokic's public, attributed statements far more seriously than anything allegedly said by anonymous sources. I worked as a credentialed journalist long enough to observe exactly how many of these stories are written, and to understand WHY they are written, which is why I react with such a critical and jaundiced response to most of what passes for "journalism" in recent years.
That said, it is--as you acknowledged--pure speculation to assert that an article influenced how Westbrook played. His role inherently involves having fluctuating numbers and efficiency because he does not get a steady diet of minutes, touches, or shot attempts. When he shot the ball 20 times a game he could start 1-8 and then make eight of his next 12, but if he starts 1-8 now he may not get more minutes or shots.
(2nd Anon)
Normally I'd agree with that sentiment, but in this series specifically the big-money starting unit more than held its own, and I don't think there's really anybody making real money on the bench?
Now, fair question is, if your big money starting unit leaves you so bereft of functional depth that you lose anyway, maybe you'd be better served weakening that unit slightly to strengthen your downstream strength?
But in this case I don't even really think that's the main issue, Westbrook and Watson are just awkward fits to carry the bench for a team that really relies pretty heavily on perimeter shooting to create space, and doesn't have the defense to win rock-fights most of the time. There are other teams where both guys would probably make more sense. Watson would fit in great in Houston, for instance, and Westbrook in Dallas would give them a badly needed second creator while also protecting him with enough bigs and shooting that he could actually play the way he likes to play.
It's also that it really was only those two guys it seemed like they trusted, and even then only barely, so they put a pretty heavy minutes load on their older starting lineup, which is a tough ask when going agains a team as much younger, deeper, and more athletic as OKC was.
I'm not the other anonymous who mentioned floor raising, but I don't agree with the binary of productive/not productive. Harden, CP3, Dame, or Embiid are great examples of floor raisers who lowers your ceiling; you build a team around them you're likely going to have home court in the first round and you're also likely going to be headed home in the second. The point in Westbrook's career where anyone would build a team around him is probably past, but that might have been a fair description of him back when it was the case.
Another phrasing I've seen for the idea is that there are 82 game players, there are 16 game players, and there are 98 game players. Someone like Jokic, Giannis, or Curry/Lebron when they were a little younger are 98 game players; they're great all-year round, win you 50+ games and carry you in the playoffs. Players like Murray, Kawhi, or Butler are more 16 game players; they lack the health or consistency to totally carry a team for 82 games year to year, but they are proven playoff risers who can often raise their game when the stakes are highest.
Then guys like Harden or Embiid are 82 game players, who can often carry you more-or-less to 50 wins, but something about their skill package, mentality, or durability mean they're either easier to counter over the course of a series, or their mentality or durability might beat them without you really even having to do anything.
Westbrook sure seemed like a 98 game player in the early days with KD, but once teams kinda "solved" his offense at the playoff level, he's probably been more of an 82 game player since. Over his eight post-Durant playoff runs he's shooting 38% from the field on 18 shots a game; that's pretty hard on an offense even before you get into the turnovers or whatever's going on with him on defense sometimes. And it's not like it's one bad year throwing the numbers off either; he's sub-.400 in six of them, and not much above it in the other two.
No shame in not being the guy anymore at his age, and it's even pretty admirable how hard he tries in the regular season, but I do think it's tough to look at his recent playoff runs and feel like he's having all that much of a winning impact anymore. His heroics these days feel pretty badly outnumbered by his blunders, though it wasn't always so.
But according to StatMuse, he's got the worst playoff +- in the league since KD left him. Filter it down to per game and he's fourth worse among players with at least 20 playoff games played (obviously there's a ton of one-or-two series role players who are worse with smaller sample sizes, though).
At eight seasons, is that still a small enough sample size to blame? It's more than half his total playoff runs.
2nd Anon:
I'm not sure that I agree with putting Harden, Paul, Lillard, Embiid, and Westbrook in the same category, for a variety of reasons that would take more time to explain than I care to spend; my short response would be to note that Westbrook in his prime was an All-NBA First Team caliber player on four WCF teams, which is more CF appearances than Paul, Lillard, and Embiid combined. Paul specializes in blowing 3-1 series leads, Lillard made one fluky WCF appearance in 2019 and has two playoff series wins in other years in his entire career, and Embiid has never seen the ECF without a ticket or a cable subscription. Harden is a stat-padding choker, as I have discussed at length in many articles. Let's just say that your magnificent four have been on teams that fell short of reasonable expectations more so than Westbrook's teams have. I half-jokingly say that Westbrook should go straight to the HoF just for taking the "Wheeze-hards" to the playoffs in 2021; you can say that Westbrook had Bradley Beal that year, but then I will point out that 2021 was Beal's only playoff appearance between 2018 and 2024 (and in 2024 he was in Phoenix with Kevin Durant and Devin Booker). I have not seen Beal raising many floors or notching much playoff success.
Westbrook has flaws, as all players do, but the media vendetta against him because he does not give them the press conference answers that they want is ridiculous, as is the hounding from LeBron James' p.r. team (which is feverishly trying to figure out how to pin the Lakers' latest failed season on Luka Doncic, starting with J.J. Redick's sniping about the team not being in championship condition).
2nd Anon
Me: "Westbrook sure seemed like a 98 game player in the early days with KD, but once teams kinda "solved" his offense at the playoff level, he's probably been more of an 82 game player since."
You: "Westbrook in his prime was an All-NBA First Team caliber player on four WCF teams"
...while I appreciate the stump speech, it's kinda irrelevant to an observation that was framed as "since separating from KD". Obviously Westbrook used to be a relevant post-season player once upon a decade ago, my comment was just that those days are long gone, and he's now sadly become the opposite. Whether that's because the league passed him by, because his athleticism slipped, or because he was secretly KD's backpack all along I don't know. Maybe a little of each.
I will say it's kinda iffy roasting Harden for being a playoff dropper in defense of Westbrook. That house might be pretty glass. I get that Harden's less likable but let's be realistic about which one of them is more accomplished in the last ten years. Both guys had chokejobs, but Harden's were at least interrupted by winning some series, too. Westbrook's won two series post-KD, and they happen to both be series where he missed games that his teams won anyway, so even there it's tough to assign him too much of the credit.
I mean, shoot, Westbrook joined Harden's Houston team and made it worse, then Harden joined Westbrook's Clippers team and they gave Harden his minutes and shipped him out of town.
Also, not to just dump on the guy but as much as you bring up those WCF runs... he wasn't exactly great in most of them? Like Harden, again, he kinda gets worse the deeper into the postseason he goes. For his career he's below 40% shooting in the WCF, with over 4 TOs a night, and a roughly neutral +-. He started hot against the Spurs and Warrior those last two years, but just got worse as the series went was a mess by the end both times.
I don't think he's really safe from the "choker" allegations any more than Paul or Harden is, TBH. Shoot, the one time either he or Harden made the Finals, they were both on the same team, and Harden had the better WCF of the two. In the Finals Harden was really bad for the first four games, while Westbrook was more hot and cold, but with their season on the line Harden at least kinda showed up and Westbrook had his worst game of the whole playoffs, going 19/4/6 on putrid 20% shooting.
Maybe you'd prefer I'd compared him to Karl Malone? Great regular season player who blinks under the bright lights?
I also don't think I mentioned Bradley Beal, because he stinks, but sure, if anything he's definitely an 82 game player at best, and probably not even that.
But Westbrook has also had a lot of teammates who didn't stink, or at least stunk less than Beal, and his playoff record without Kevin Durant is now 17-36, which is... you know, pretty ugly. As much as we rightly make fun of Harden's fails, he wins more of his playoff games than he loses, and it's not like Westbrook was exactly steeping himself in glory in those post-KD flameouts, either, with a bunch of sub-.400 shooting series and some pretty wretched crunchtime showings, including losing series to all four of the guys who are apparently such losers you're offended I mentioned him in the same breath as them. If someone keeps losing to losers, what's that make them?
I think the comp is fair, and acknowledging that doesn't take anything away from the better player Westbrook used to be in his sidekick days.
2nd Anon:
You can choose to "frame" your argument however you want, but I don't have to use the same "frame" and I reject using arbitrary timelines to evaluate a player.
As I noted above, Westbrook has made more CF appearances as an All-NBA First Team caliber player than Paul, Lillard, and Embiid combined. That is just one reason--but an important one--why Westbrook should not be included in the same category as those players in terms of impacting playoff success/raising the ceiling.
Regarding Harden and Westbrook, I again reject the arbitrary timeline of the past 10 years. Harden's only NBA Finals appearance came as the third option, well behind Durant and Westbrook--and, in a preview of coming attractions, Harden disappeared in the NBA Finals.
It is inaccurate to say that Westbrook "made the Rockets worse." It is true that the Clippers demoted Westbrook in favor of the egotistical Harden, who pouts at the mere suggestion that his team might be better if he accepts a lesser role. The Nuggets beat the Clippers this year and advanced to the second round, and Westbrook excelled in his role during that series while Harden, as usual, choked when it mattered most. The Clippers demoting and then casting aside Westbrook did not work out very well for them, nor did their reliance on Harden.
Unlike Harden, Lillard, and Paul, Westbrook has not demanded trades or maneuvered to form super teams. Westbrook did not abandon OKC after Durant fled to GS. If Westbrook had done those things, maybe his playoff record would have been better, but he deserves credit for giving his all regardless of circumstances, and for accepting changing roles each time he has been traded.
Circling back to the point that I made in this article, this season Westbrook was a minimum contract player who was a productive rotation player for a team that reached the second round and pushed the overall top seed to seven games. He produced much more than could be reasonably be expected from a minimum contract player, and he produced more than anyone else that the Nuggets could have signed to fill that salary slot. It is not Westbrook's fault if the Nuggets overpaid other players or did not properly construct the rest of their bench.
(2nd)
Hey man, I don't think it's arbitrary when the whole observation is "after this point, this change happened" to start the timeline for evaluating it at the point of the change. Kinda don't know how to talk about it without doing that, even. But whatever, clearly you know better.
Peace. Enjoy the rest of the playoffs.
2nd Anon:
Perhaps I don't understand the point that you are trying to make, or the relevance of that point. When evaluating a player's resume, I look at the whole body of work. In order to determine if a player raises the ceiling or lowers the roof or stomps on the floor, we need to look at everything. If I were to select a demarcation line, it would be when Westbrook ceased being an All-NBA level player and became a complementary player, not midway through his career when Durant fled from GS to OKC.
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