OKLAHOMA CITY _ Perhaps befitting the election year that is, Timberwolves coach Tom Thibodeau articulated a strategy to counter Thunder superstar Russell Westbrook before Saturday's 112-92 loss at Oklahoma City, without saying who would pay for it.
"We have to build a wall," he said.
Thibodeau spoke specifically about surrounding Westbrook in defensive transition from mid-court to the 3-point line, a strategy that worked Saturday against Westbrook's speed and athleticism about as well as any other team's efforts.
On Saturday, Westbrook delivered a 28-point, 8-assist, 6-rebound performance in just 28 minutes and didn't play the game's final, lopsided 13-plus minutes. It came two nights after his Thunder got thumped in Golden State by the Warriors and former teammate Kevin Durant in Oakland.
The Thunder now have started the season 5-1 without Durant while the Wolves are 1-4.
Westbrook scored 18 of his points in a first half on a night when the Wolves avoided a big blown early lead but not another abomination of a third quarter.
A third such third quarter came anyway already this season, even though Thibodeau huddled his team together Friday for a film session that lasted nearly two hours.
This time, the Wolves were outscored 31-19 in Saturday's third quarter after they had been outscored 31-12 at Sacramento a week earlier and 33-14 by Denver at Target Center on Thursday.
Wolves second-year center Karl-Anthony Towns came within two points of his career scoring high, reaching 33 points in fewer than three quarters before he, too, did not play at all in the fourth quarter.
Towns scored 25 of those 33 points in the first half. It was the seventh 20-point half of his career and his second in three days.
The Wolves trailed 32-25 after the first quarter, trailed 59-53 at halftime and then fell behind by 21 points in the third quarter after the Thunder used a 18-1 burst to run away.
They trailed by as many as 26 points in the fourth quarter, when Thibodeau sent little-used reserves Jordan Hill, Adreian Payne and John Lucas III into the game to finish out the final 6-plus minutes while Westbrook, Towns and the game's other principals sat and watched time tick away.
"Russell's one of the elite players in the league, an MVP-type talent," Thibodeau said before Saturday's game. "The way he's coming at you in transition, it's not only his speed but it's the power and strength that go with it. It's very difficult to guard him individually. You have to guard him with our team."
That's where the wall that never really materialized Saturday comes into it.
That's where what Thibodeau called a "tight shell" and second- and third-efforts would have helped, too.
The Wolves received little of it all on a night when the Thunder bounced back from a 26-point loss to the Warriors and Durant, who left town as a free agent last summer to sign with Golden State after he had spent the first nine seasons of his NBA career in Oklahoma City.
"There has to be bodies there," Thibodeau said about trying to defend Westbrook. "It doesn't take him much. If you give him just a little bit of a crack, he'll break you down and get into the paint and that leads to all kinds of other problems because of their size, their rebounding, their ability to score in the paint."
The Thunder did a little bit of everything Saturday. Big men Stevens Adams' 14 points and eight rebounds and Enes Kanter's 20 points and 10 rebounds supplemented Westbrook's typical stat line.
