Amid the carnage that was the Denver Nuggets’ Game 7 blowout of the Los Angeles Clippers on Saturday, it had to feel pretty good to be Russell Westbrook.
The veteran guard had a solid two-season career with the Clippers, but was jettisoned last offseason as part of a trade to the Utah Jazz that landed defensive specialist Kris Dunn. At 35 years old, Westbrook was waived by Utah and proceeded to join the Nuggets in free agency.
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Westbrook is a long distance away from his years as an All-Star, but he slotted in as a bench piece for a Denver team desperate for depth and did his usual thing, for better or worse. It was better on Saturday, when Westbrook stole the ball from his old team while up 29 points in the fourth quarter and took a victory dunk.
Then he hung on the rim until the officials gave him the technical foul he was clearly looking for, and yelled “I don’t give a f*** as he revved up a delighted Ball Arena crowd.
“I thought about, when I was about to get off the rim backward. I just said, ‘nah’ I’m gonna stay up here and try to break the rim. And then the tech came,” Westbrook said after the game. “Intensity, just the emotions and everything. Just for me, the fans here are great. Give me a lot of energy, I feed off of them. The moment, just a lot, I think for all of us and for the fans, a sign of relief that we kind of had the game in hand.”
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Westbrook finished the game with 16 points on 5-of-9 shooting, plus five rebounds, five assists, five steals and two turnovers.
Meanwhile, Dunn finished with three points on 1-of-4 shooting after falling out of the starting lineup for Game 7. He was a defensive standout for the Clippers this season, but saw his role shrink significantly over the course of the Nuggets series.
Westbrook very clearly took the trade that exchanged him for Dunn personally.
The loss once again ends the Clippers’ season in disappointing fashion, while the Nuggets will advance to face another old team of Westbrook’s, the top-seeded Oklahoma City Thunder, who spent the first round ripping apart the Memphis Grizzlies.
It might be a bit harder to get bragging rights in that one.
