Sixers Clash with Thunder Tuesday Night

By Sean Kennedy

With the Sixers really cutting their tanking chops recently with three losses to bottom dwellers Orlando and Milwaukee, they should have a much easier time going quietly into the night against a dominant Oklahoma City squad. The Thunder currently lead San Antonio by 1.5 games for the number-one seed in the West, and are only 1.5 games behind Indiana for the league’s best overall record. Bookmakers currently have the Sixers as 20-point underdogs, which still seems fairly generous considering the Magic were 11-point favorites against Philadelphia even without two starters. If this was college football, poll voters would penalize the Thunder for putting such a creampuff on their schedule.

As far as how things have been going for Oklahoma City recently, they have been re-adjusting to having former all-star point guard Russell Westbrook back into the lineup. The Thunder went on a three-game losing streak immediately following his return, and all the media buzz began swirling about if Durant and Westbrook could play together and whether the Thunder were better off without Russell. Those murmurs have since quieted down after consecutive Oklahoma City victories and the fact that over his last three games, Westbrook is averaging 24 ppg on 61% shooting and 7 assists. Coming off his third procedure on his knee in the past 12 months, there was bound to be some initial rust but he appears to be rounding back into form. Hopefully, all that co-existing talk can finally be put to bed; having an all-star in the prime of his career re-join the team is not a bad thing.

Even with Westbrook back in action, the Thunder are still dealing with a couple injury concerns. Thabo Sefolosha is out over a month with a strained calf and Kendrick Perkins is sidelined for the rest of the regular season with a groin injury. The silver lining with two starters going down is that it should give guys like Jeremy Lamb, Perry Jones, and Steven Adams increased minutes and help better prepare them to contribute during the Thunder’s playoff run. Especially with Perkins out, maybe Scott Brooks will finally realize every analytics guy’s dream for the Thunder of playing small lineups with Ibaka at the 5 and Durant at the 4. They certainly seem like a more well-constructed until without Perkins on the floor and the numbers back that up.

Speaking of Durant, we’ve gone this far without mentioning the best scorer in the game and the favorite to win MVP, but that’s because you know what you’re getting with him. He’s on pace to record over a 30 Player Efficiency Rating on the season, which has only been done less than 20 times in NBA history. He dropped about as casual a triple-double as you’ll ever see when these teams met earlier this season and I’d be surprised if he didn’t again. At close to 32 ppg on the season, he could easily score 50 against these Sixers and the only thing that would stop him is sitting out the entire fourth quarter with the Thunder showing mercy on a team that hasn’t won since January. The Sixers will likely lose their 15th-straight game tonight, but at least we’ll get to watch a future hall-of-famer in the process.