How Russell Westbrook read the final play in Game 7 vs. Thunder

Westbrook struggled in Game 6, but he made up for it with 20 points and just two turnovers in Game 7. He also contributed to the final stop.

All-Star guard Russell Westbrook didn’t play well in Game 6 of his team’s first-round playoff series, which ended in a tight loss for the Houston Rockets against his former team, the Oklahoma City Thunder.

Westbrook had a game-high seven turnovers as the Rockets gave it away 22 times, easily their most of the series. “That’s my fault, honestly,” Westbrook said after that loss. “That’s easy. Last game I had zero [turnovers], and tonight I had seven. Simple as that.”

In a Game 7 victory, which advanced Houston to the second round of the NBA playoffs, the former MVP clearly redeemed himself.

During an off shooting night by James Harden, Westbrook scored 20 points on 9-of-20 shooting (45%), and his nine rebounds (second only to Robert Covington) helped the smaller Rockets stay within two in the rebounding battle, 46-44. Perhaps most importantly, he only had two turnovers, as Houston trimmed its 22 in Game 6 to 12 in Game 7.

While Harden was the key facilitator during the final minutes, it was Westbrook’s scoring in the 40 previous minutes that allowed the Rockets to stay within striking distance. That set up the closing 13-8 push in the last eight minutes, which gave Houston a thrilling victory.

To cap it all off, in the game’s final second, Westbrook then snuffed out the attempt by his former team at a series-winning play.

With Oklahoma City trailing 104-102 with 1.1 seconds left, Westbrook essentially defended in the role of free safety, with the Rockets choosing not to actively defend Shai Gilgeous-Alexander as the inbounder.

Westbrook initially denied a potential pass to Danilo Gallinari before quickly sprinting back to help break up a pass to big man Steven Adams, which allowed time to expire. Presumably, Adams would have quickly tapped the ball to someone else for the final shot.

How did Westbrook know to keep an eye on Adams? It helped that he played the last four seasons for Oklahoma City coach Billy Donovan, prior to his July 2019 trade to the Rockets.

Speaking postgame, Westbrook said of the sequence:

Yeah, I kind of know a little bit. I just wanted to mix it up because I knew they were out of timeouts and I knew where the ball was going. I was just trying to muck it up. There wasn’t enough time to make one more catch.

In some ways, it was reminiscent of a play the Thunder ran in April 2017 when trailing by two at Denver. With 2.9 seconds left, Adams came out to a similar point on the left wing before tapping it back to Westbrook, who buried the 3-pointer as time expired to win the game.

“I thought defensively we put ourselves in position to close the game,” Westbrook said of his team’s performance. “We got stops on demand, which is tough to do. We dug deeper and did that.”

With the win, Westbrook and the Rockets are moving on to the second round of the playoffs for a star-studded matchup against LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers. Tip-off of Game 1 is set for 8:00 p.m. Central on Friday, with the game broadcast nationally on ESPN.

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