Oklahoma City to Rest Westbrook Down the Stretch
The Oklahoma City Thunder lead the NBA Northwest Division by a comfortable 5 ½ games over the Portland Trail Blazers and by 15 ½ games over the Minnesota Timberwolves.
With just 17 games to go before the end of the regular season, the coaching staff is preparing for the postseason. One of the preparations has to do with the Thunder’s talented point guard Russell Westbrook.
Since Westbrook has returned from another knee surgery (three since April of last year), he has played exceptionally well. However, the team has not completely unleashed the multi-talented 25 year old as of yet.
Looking at his stats you would not know he is being handled carefully by first the trainers and secondly the Thunder coaching staff.
In the ten games, he has played since returning, Westbrook is averaging 22 points, 7.4 assists, 4.8 rebounds and 2.5 steals. However, he has averaged just 27 minutes in those same 10 games.
However, the coaching and medical staff will cut those 27 minutes per game, heading towards the postseason.
The remaining schedule for Oklahoma City in the regular season has a number of back-to-back games. The Thunder coaches are planning to approach those back-to-back games the way an aging contender, such as maybe San Antonio would, with a plan to rest the point guard.
The Thunder has six back-to-back sets of games during the last month of this season. On Saturday, Scott Brooks the head coach for the Thunder announced Westbrook would not play both of the back-to-back games heading down the stretch.
Brooks said the team’s plan was to have Westbrook sit one of the two games in some of the back-to-back sets over the next month.
On Sunday, the Thunder will start the first of its six back-to-back sets when they play at home versus the Dallas Mavericks. On Monday, they face the Chicago Bulls in Chicago.
The Thunder will end this week with two straight road games versus Cleveland and Toronto on back-to-back nights.
The toughest back-to-back set will be April 3 versus the Spurs at home and April 4 versus Houston on the road.
The Thunder are currently second in the Western Conference playoff race, but with the announcement made regarding resting Westbrook it seems they do not feel the No. 1 spot is worth risking Westbrook for.
Oklahoma City seems to think the long term, the entire postseason, is much more important than winning the top seed and having home court advantage throughout the postseason.
The Thunder is two games in front of the Los Angeles Clippers the third place team. Oklahoma City leads the Houston Rockets, the No. 4 seed by four games.
Things would have to turn upside down for the Thunder to feel damage over the last month of the regular season and skids of colossal proportions usually do not afflict a team led by Kevin Durant.
With Westbrook 100% when the playoffs start, it gives the Thunder that much more of an advantage over the rest of the deep and talented Western Conference.
