The Oklahoma City Thunder aren’t going to win a lot of NBA games this year, and the Los Angeles Lakers aren’t going to lose a ton (I think?).
So if you’re Darius Bazley and you want to put the stamp on a huge upset with a 123-115 win over the LeBron-less Lakers with a steal and a dunk in the final seconds, why not?
It fires up the home crowd, it gives your team a little statement moment and it’s just fun. Dunks are fun! In huge wins especially!
Now, on the other side of this highlight, you’ve got the Lakers’ Russell Westbrook, who didn’t take kindly to Bazley dunking off the inbounds play and confronted him. I also get why he got in Bazley’s face — Westbrook has to establish a tone for this Lakers team and show he won’t take slights to the unwritten rules.
But overall? Lame. You got beat by a young, unproven Thunder team. Own it and let them have the dunk. Unwritten rules are almost always unwritten for a reason.
Russell Westbrook assessed his second technical foul and ejected for grilling Darius Bazley with a thousand “DONT DO THAT”s in the final seconds pic.twitter.com/XYrGUJqHFw
— Rob Perez (@WorldWideWob) October 28, 2021
Here’s what Westbrook said afterwards, via The Athletic:
“When [expletive] like that happens I don’t let it slide. … There’s certain things you just don’t do in sports. Game already over and I didn’t like it. Simple as that.”
Thunder head coach Mark Daigneault took responsibility but he did say this:
Mark Daigneault on the ending Darius dunk: “We haven’t covered that and that’s on me. I’m taking that one. We’re trying to juice our team with confidence. If there’s anyone to blame on that, it’s me.”
— Brandon Rahbar (@BrandonRahbar) October 28, 2021
That line about juicing the team with confidence? That’s it right there.
