Game 76 Recap: Oklahoma City 116, Minnesota 108; A Win is a Win

Yahoo! Sports Box Score:

5 Years from now, nobody will remember this game. Nobody will remember how the Thunder jumped out to a 20 point lead and then slowly watched it fade away, and nobody will remember the late game heroics of Kevin Durant and Nenad Krstic. All that will be remembered is the fact that we got a win, and we got the hell out of there.

Despite being a sellout, this was one of the quietest games of the season. Throughout the entire first half, the Timberwolves didn't even look like they were even trying. The Thunder only looked half there. The crowd went along with this act and decided to be only half there too. In the third, there was mostly just shock as the Timberwolves drew closer extremely sluggishly, and in the fourth, there was a bit of celebration as the Thunder secured their win. The crowd was in nice clothes, so I suppose they wanted it that way.

Below: Analysis, Awards

The Timberwolves launched their third quarter comeback by getting fouled. That's pretty much all you need to know. They made the game as long as possible by finding various ways to get fouled, boring the Thunder so much that they decided that they needed to jack up a bunch of ill-advised jump shots and 3 pointers in order to make things interesting. In fact, it only served to make things more boring as the pace of the game was slower than that of a turtle.

Luckily, the Thunder didn't let the Timberwolves' comeback come to fruition. The Timberwolves were within 6 at the beginning of the fourth quarter, but the Thunder were soon working the ball around for baskets again, and all was good.

There's not a lot more to say about this game, so let's just get to the awards....

Thunder Wonder: 40 Points, 9 Rebounds, 2 Assists, 2 Blocks. Scoring 40 points should be enough, but he also scored a lot of those points at critical junctures of the game, when the Timberwolves were constantly threatening to come back. Another great night for a fantastic player.

Thunder Down Under: Russell Westbrook, 10 Points, 16 Assists, 1 Turnover, 2 Steals. There's a lot of deserving players in this game, but a 16/1 Assist to turnover ratio simply can't be ignored, especially when your backup, Eric Maynor, is having a rather sluggish night. 4-11 Shooting is bad, but bah, I'm willing to overlook it this time.

Thunder Blunder: Eric Maynor, 2 Points, 1-4 Shooting, 2 Rebounds, 3 Assists, 1 Turnover. Man, picking a Thunder Blunder was a lot easier when the Thunder were losing. I'm only picking Maynor because of his offensive performance. 1-4 is just a bad number. Sure, you scored once, but you missed 3 shots. That might as well be 3 turnovers, man.

Thunder Plunderer: Ryan Gomes, 22 Points, 7-13 Shooting, 4-7 3 Pointers, 4-5 Free Throws, 3 Rebounds. Sure, all he did was score, but he did it very efficiently. Plus, he wasn't turning the ball over as much as Flynn and Brewer, who also scored well. I really wanted to name Damien Wilkins the Thunder Plunderer for tonight, but the analyst in me wouldn't let me do it. Still, he did have an impressive 12 Points on 3-4 Shooting, 6-6 Free Throws, and 3 Rebounds.

Next Game: At the Jazz, Tuesday, April 6th, 8 PM Central Daylight Time.