Russell Westbrook Triple-Double Watch: Game 35, at the Bucks
Oklahoma City Thunder guard Russell Westbrook is threatening to become the first NBA player to average a triple-double since Cincinnati Royals Hall of Famer Oscar Robertson achieved the double-figure points, assists and rebounds mark during the 1961-62 NBA season. A lot has changed in the league since then, which is why Westbrook’s current averages of 30.9 points, 10.7 assists and 10.5 rebounds would make such a feat a remarkable achievement in line with some of the greatest individual seasons in NBA history. If not the greatest individual season in NBA history.
As Westbrook takes on each new opponent while the OKC season drawls on, we’ll be updating his chances at matching the Big O’s feat.
Your man Russ responded to an unexpectedly early exit in a one-sided loss to the Memphis Grizzlies in characteristically explosive fashion, taking out his frustrations on the Chris Paul- and Blake Griffin-less Los Angeles Clippers with a game-opening bum rush that rendered the New Year’s Eve contest over and done a solid 2 1/2 hours before the ball dropped in Times Square:
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Westbrook needed just 18 minutes and 45 seconds of floor time to roll up his NBA-leading 16th triple-double of the season — just two fewer than he had all of last season, which was the highest total the league had seen in more than three decades — in OKC’s 114-88 blowout of the Clips. He’d finish with 17 points on 6-for-11 shooting, 14 assists, 12 rebounds, two steals and just one turnover in 29 minutes through three quarters before getting to watch the whole fourth frame from the sidelines as the Thunder improved to 21-13, tied for the fourth-best record in the West.
Despite his exceptionally fast work in dispatching the Clippers — this was the the third-fastest triple-double in NBA history — Westbrook’s outing wasn’t the top story of the NBA’s New Year’s Eve slate, as former teammate James Harden’s monstrous and historic 53-point, 17-assist, 16-rebound triple-double in a win over the New York Knicks deservedly dominated hoop discussion as we rang in the new year. As the Thunder return to work after the holiday, the 2016-17 season’s MVP frontrunner might once again find himself fighting for for the headlines, as OKC gets back to business with a trip to Wisconsin to take on a Milwaukee Bucks team led by another of the NBA’s most versatile, transcendent and brilliant young stars, Greek forward/guard/center/everything Giannis Antetokounmpo, who ended his 2016 with a bang, too:
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Antetokounmpo dominated the Chicago Bulls on New Year’s Eve, scoring 35 points on 19 shots with nine rebounds, seven assists, a career-high seven blocks and two steals in 40 1/2 minutes to pace Milwaukee to a 116-96 pasting of their Central Division rivals. The only player in Basketball-Reference.com’s database to rival those all-around individual marks? Anthony Davis, who popped for 36 points, 14 boards, nine blocks and seven dimes in an overtime loss to the Denver Nuggets late in the 2014-15 season during which he announced his arrival as a potential perennial MVP candidate (when healthy, natch). Antetokounmpo might very well be doing the same thing.
The 22-year-old is turning in a remarkable fourth NBA season, leading his team in points, rebounds, assists, blocks and steals, and leading the Eastern Conference in Player Efficiency Rating, Real Plus-Minus, Box Plus-Minus, Value Over Replacement Player and Win Shares while serving as the primary ball-handler, scorer and defensive disruptor for a Bucks team that enters Monday at .500 at 16-16, tied with the surging Washington Wizards for sixth place in the East. At this point, Giannis’ only statistical antecedents are immortals; it’s only fitting, then, that he begin the new year by doing battle with Westbrook, another transcendent talent engaged in a nightly pursuit of the seemingly impossible whose athletic exploits make you wonder if you really just saw what you think you did.
“I think he’s going to be a very, very prominent player,” said Bucks rookie point guard Malcolm Brogdon, who notched a triple-double of his own, the first of his career, in Saturday’s win over Chicago. “He already is one of the best players in the NBA. He’s leading this team every night and I think he deserves a lot of credit.
“[…] He’s one of those Kobe Bryant, LeBron James-type players,” Brogdon added. ”Playing with a guy like that makes it a little bit easier.”
As impressive an all-around game-changer as Antetokounmpo has been this year — and as much support as he’s gotten from 2014 No. 2 draft pick Jabari Parker — little figures to be “easy” about slowing Westbrook on Monday. The Bucks enter 2017 as the NBA’s ninth-ranked defense, allowing 103.9 points per 100 possessions, and with a fairly strong track record against opposing lead guards, limiting them to a below-average 14.3 Player Efficiency Rating while forcing nearly four turnovers per night, according to 82games.com’s charting. But none of those opponents have been Westbrook, who averaged 21 points, nine assists, 8.5 rebounds and three steals per game in two victories over Milwaukee last season … including a 15-point, 11-assist, 10-rebound triple-double in March, a game that also saw Antetokounmpo pour in 26 points with 12 rebounds and 10 assists.
With Matthew Dellavedova out as he continues to nurse a right hamstring strain, rookie Brogdon will likely see quite a bit of Westbrook, as a Milwaukee team that “has difficulty containing guards adept at penetrating without a pick and roll,” according to Adam Paris of BrewHoop, looks for answers to stall the league’s leading scorer and No. 2 assist man. You’d imagine Westbrook would be licking his chops at the chance to attack a rookie with all of two NBA starts under his belt, but as his evolution into an elite table-setter has shown, he’s more than willing to draw and dish to dominate if that’s what opponents’ coverage dictates.
“The game will tell you what to do,” Westbrook said after Saturday’s win. “And that’s just what I do.”
Few in the NBA have done that better this season than Russ and Giannis. Miss Monday’s matchup at your own peril.
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Dan Devine is an editor for Ball Don’t Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at devine@yahoo-inc.com or follow him on Twitter!
