SACRAMENTO – The Oklahoma City Thunder and Sacramento Kings will experience their first NBA Cup game of the year on Friday (Saturday morning, Singapore time), when Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Russell Westbrook face off in California’s capital.
Oklahoma City opened the year with eight straight wins before suffering a 121-119 loss at Portland on Wednesday night, blowing a 22-point lead in the second game of a back-to-back.
The Kings, on the other hand, are coming off one of their best wins of the season, a 121-116 home triumph over their Northern California rivals, the Golden State Warriors, despite playing without Domantas Sabonis, Zach LaVine and Keegan Murray.
The West Group A combatants have already met once this season, with the Thunder needing a 17-4 game-ending run to avoid an upset and halt their season-opening winning streak.
Gilgeous-Alexander saved seven of his 31 points for the late flurry in the win over the Kings, clinching the victory with a 3-pointer that extended the Oklahoma City lead to six with 16 seconds to go.
Counterpart Westbrook, who played his first 11 NBA seasons with the Thunder, actually was Gilgeous-Alexander’s teammate for six days in July 2019 before he left for the Houston Rockets.
Among other things, the defensive standouts have developed into two of the top rebounding guards in the NBA. Although Gilgeous-Alexander has had a slight edge over the past two seasons, Westbrook claimed after a 16-rebound effort against the Warriors on Wednesday that he’s “the best rebounding guard ever”.
His season-best performance against Golden State included a triple-double with 23 points and 10 assists. This triple-double was the 204th of his career, the most in NBA history.
Afterwards, Westbrook was more excited about passing Jason Kidd on the NBA all- time rebounds list than about adding to his triple-double record.
“I didn’t even know,” he insisted. “I need to get that game ball. Can somebody get it for me? I need that.”
The 16 rebounds raised Westbrook’s season average to 7.1. Gilgeous-Alexander is at 5.4 after grabbing nine boards against the Trail Blazers.
Despite coming off their first loss of the season, the Thunder will take the Sacramento court undefeated in another regard. Friday is the club’s NBA Cup tip-off.
“This team does a really good job at learning through those things,” Thunder coach Mark Daigneault assured the media about the loss at Portland. “We’ll learn from it and be a better team tomorrow when we wake up.”
Meanwhile in the only NBA game on Thursday, Jalen Green scored 29 points and sank six 3-pointers in his season debut as the host Phoenix Suns beat the short-handed Los Angeles Clippers 115-102.
Devin Booker added 24 points for the Suns, who made 19 treys, one short of a season high. REUTERS
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