Watching Russell Westbrook – right now – is like looking at a highlights package unfold before you in real time.
There’s something for everyone and let’s be clear, they’re not all good highlights. But the Los Angeles Clippers veteran point guard is involved in everything during his new team’s clash with the Phoenix Suns and it’s turning it into one of the most captivating matchups of the postseason’s first round.
Take this little snapshot from a couple of minutes of Game 2 on Tuesday night, in which the Clippers hung tough until near the waning stages before succumbing to a 123-109 defeat that evened the series at 1-1.
Westbrook drove explosively down the lane but missed a dunk when the ball slipped in his fingers. He sniffed and shrugged it off when the Phoenix crowd taunted him by chanting “Westbrick,” the nickname he detests. He snatched an impossible offensive rebound then turned it into a bucket before he even hit the ground while twisting acrobatically. He misread a defensive assignment badly enough that Devin Booker was instantly wide open.
And he racked up the 28th point of a performance that indicated his shooting stroke, when in the groove, remains capable of consistent, high-end output.
If you thought Westbrook’s career was going to go quietly into the night when his ill-fated stint with the Los Angeles Lakers ended with essentially a stroll down the Crypto.com arena corridor to the Clippers locker room, that’s fine.
Devin Booker’s 38 points leads Suns to Game 2 win vs. Clippers
Skip Bayless and Shannon Sharpe discuss the biggest reason Phoenix tied the series up at 1-1.
You wouldn’t have been alone in that mindset, but here we are in the playoffs and the 34-year-old looks hungrier than ever and is playing with the enthusiasm of a teenager. The Clippers, minus the injured Paul George, are trying to spring what would be a sizable upset on Kevin Durant, Chris Paul, Booker and company.
Kawhi Leonard’s quiet brilliance is keeping L.A. in games, but it is Westbrook who is bringing the energy, the sort of scrappy spirit a team with a surfeit of shooting muscle simply must have if it is to make this interesting.
In Game 1 on Sunday, Westbrook had a stinker for most of the night, shooting 3-of-19, but then simply went ahead and clinched the game in the final minute, driving to win a trip to the line, draining two free throws, then pulling off a remarkable defensive play that involved a midair block of Booker, then enough quick thinking to throw it off Booker’s body to make it Clippers ball – and game.
Russell Westbrook seals a Clippers Game 1 win vs. Suns
Colin Cowherd reacts to Russ’s game, explaining why two things can be true: his offensive liabilities but steering a game with his hustle and grit.
Westbrook looks to be a mission to prove how badly he wants it, after pit stops with Houston, Washington and the Lakers that lavished him with contracted money but didn’t pan out with any semblance of success.
He may have found his happy, or happier place, on a Clippers team that continues to punch above its weight and will head home aiming to show why the generally held assumption that Phoenix would breeze by them may have a twist in it.
“We know it’s going to be a tough series,” Westbrook told reporters on Tuesday. “I thought we gave ourselves a chance. We came out with the right mindset.”
His approach is to just throw himself into the fray. Westbrook has been talking frequently about the lack of pressure he feels, and there is a layered undertone to it. He is adamant he didn’t receive fair treatment with the Lakers, was too often blamed when things went wrong, and that the situation created a level of tension that would cause any player to think twice before trying to make a big play. Here, now, he’s just going for it.
It is true that he got scapegoated with the Lakers, and was soon emblematic of everything that was going wrong with the purple-and-gold. He was viewed as the catalyst for the team’s chemistry problems. It seemed things were only going one way, and that his days of being a positive contributor to a playoff team were gone.
But then George vouched for him, Westbrook agreed a buyout with the Utah Jazz after being offloaded there by the Lakers, and Clippers head coach Ty Lue has come up with effective ways to use him.
Part of that is an explicit order to bring the ferocity, to play with fearlessness and without reservation, mistakes and all.
The result is that Westbrook’s teammates hear the criticism he continues to receive, but don’t necessarily agree with it. He averaged 15.9 points for the Clippers following the move, shooting at nearly 49 percent overall and 35.6 percent from 3-point territory. We’re not pretending that his slashing drives and overall shooting are what they were at his peak, but there is more to it than that.
“[Critics] just see Russ for the shots he misses,” George told Bleacher Report. “They don’t see him for the rebounding, the defense. They solely lock into whether he makes or misses shots and judge him off that.”
There is a greater philosophical discussion looming, about what Westbrook can and cannot do and what his remaining time in the NBA looks like from here. That will all be worked out, but for now it is worth just enjoying it for what it is.
For the Westbrook haters, and there are many, the way he is attacking means there will be enough errors to keep you happy. But he is having a helping effect on the Clippers, too, and they wouldn’t be the same without him.
His story, especially of late, has been a complicated one. But it is an entertaining one right now, full of incident, a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it kind of deal, from a player that’s gotten used to the criticism, but refuses to believe it.
