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| Kevin Durant (left) and Serge Ibaka (right) combined to score 51 points on 22-of-24 shooting tonight. That sums this game up. |
Not much more to say about the Oklahoma City Thunder's 120-95 drubbing (it wasn't even that close) over the Brooklyn Nets last night at the Barclays Center other than that it was one-sided. Brooklyn; coming off a brutal, late loss on Wednesday night against the Toronto Raptors; didn't even bother to show up and compete against the Thunder, who won their 10th straight game over the Nets in an easy, worry-free fashion, as they went down by 14 points after the first quarter and 28 by halftime.
The Nets didn't have Andrei Kirilenko (calf) available to guard Kevin Durant, who wasn't able to score 30 points for a 13th straight game (he had 26 on 10-for-12 shooting) just because this game was such a blowout so early, so Jason Kidd was forced to put undersized Shaun Livingston on Durant, the hottest player in the NBA. Serge Ibaka went off too, thanks partly to terrible Brooklyn defense, making all 12 of his field goals attempts–many of which were long jumpers–to score 25. Livingston led the Nets with 16 points, but to say anyone "led" this team tonight would be grossly inaccurate.
Oh yeah, Oklahoma City grabbed 41 rebounds. Under normal circumstances, that would be a routine amount of boards for any one team to collect, maybe even be a little subpar. When considering, though, that the Nets only grabbed 17 rebounds of their own–I repeat, SEVENTEEN–it looks like an obscene amount of boards. If the Nets' 17 look a little lacking, then you're spot on: It's an NBA record for least amount of rebounds for an entire team in a game. The 2001 Detroit Pistons had the next least, with 18. This one was ugly and never close. Never.
Some other observations I had from the game: I couldn't muster up anything other than that Kevin Garnett was horrific. Oh, and Deron Williams was pretty bad too.
Looking Ahead
The Nets get no break, as they head out to the Midwest to take on the Eastern Conference-leading Indiana Pacers later tonight.
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