Friday, May 20th, 2011 at 9:00 am  |  60 responses

Russell Westbrook OK With 4th Quarter Benching


by Marcel Mutoni / @marcel_mutoni

One of the lasting images from Game 2 of the Western Conference Finals isn’t Kevin Durant’s hellacious dunk over Brendan Haywood. It’s not James Harden and his beard hitting incredible, clutch shots time and again to help the OKC Thunder steal a win in Dallas.

Nope. It’s the television camera continuously panning over to Russell Westbrook, the Thunder’s unquestioned #2 star, sitting out the entire fourth quarter as his head coach Scott Brooks made the gutsy (and surprising) decision to stick with backup Eric Maynor at the most critical moment of the season.

According to Westbrook, as long as the team was winning, he had no problem watching the action from the bench.

From The Oklahoman:

At crunch time in Game 1 on Tuesday night, Russell Westbrook was missing shots. At crunch time in Game 2 on Thursday night, he was missing in action. Despite logging 0:00 in the final quarter, Westbrook insisted he couldn’t have been happier after the Oklahoma City Thunder captured home-court advantage with a 106-100 victory over the Dallas Mavericks before a hushed sellout crowd of 21,051 inside the American Airlines Center.

“When we’re winning, I’m good,” Westbrook said … Several times in his interview session, Westbrook was asked if he had a problem with not being put back into the game. “I’m just sitting there waiting to get my name called. We was winning, man,” Westbrook said. “You all want to ask the same question and I’m going to give you all the same answer – ‘We was winning.’”

“We were making shots,” Brooks explained. “I didn’t want to mess with the rhythm. I usually will sub him (Westbrook) in. Very rarely have I ever done that since Russell has been here. “The decision, really, was (because) Eric was playing well. It had nothing to do with Russell. Eric was playing good basketball, solid basketball for us. We were increasing the lead.” Even when the Thunder lead dwindled from 10 down to four with 1:03 remaining, Brooks stuck with Maynor. “The temptation was there when they cut (the lead) to six and we had to call a timeout,” Brooks admitted. “I believe in all of our guys. Some guys get more minutes than others, but they have to play hard and they do.” Asked how rewarding it was to have his coach show so much confidence it him at such a crucial time, Maynor shrugged it off. “Coach has confidence in all of us, not just me,” Maynor said.

Many consider this to be Scott Brook’s finest hour. His gamble paid off, the star point guard seems OK with the decision, and the coach emphatically won the respect and belief of his team.

It’s not the first time that a star player has ridden the bench in the fourth quarter of a huge Playoff game. Russell Westbrook will have plenty of opportunities to prove he can bounce back as the series shifts to OKC.

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  • http://slamonline.com zoom

    @ Rigo: Umm YES he would get the same flack from me if he was white. A dumb jock is a dumb jock regardless of race. Also, If you can’t see that it wasn’t David Robinson’s proper use of the language that was a source of the heat he caught from black people than you are just as condescending as the white people who assume black folks can’t relate to black public figures who speak English well. The same goes to you Airs. Smfh. And Allen, I cringed because in general I freaking cannot stand how many sports figures confirm the dumb jock stereotype. I know as well as anyone that there are professional jocks from all backgrounds that do the same thing, which is why I didn’t view Westbrooks comment as anything other another ‘dumb jock’ issue. Rigo’s commment was the one who brought the race factor into it, so you are wrong in your assumption that Westbrook’s being black was the only reason I had a problem with his poor language skills. Rigo’s assumption annoyed me because I don’t like people telling me how I view my own people. Everyone has black people so figured out that they can just assume they know exactly why I’d criticize a random athlete, without even a hint of his race being brought up in my initial post.

  • http://slamonline.com zoom

    I hate the stereotype of the unintelligent black man but I hate the condescending (equally racist) sterotype that we reject those who appear intelligent. This convo didn’t even need to go there.

  • bike

    Zoom makes a pretty good point here. Truth is, some pro athletes (black and white) in interviews can sound borderline mentally impaired (notice I did not use the ‘r’ word). There are NBA players that use the words ‘ya know’ every other word in a sentence. Jason Kidd and Kenyon Martin are two examples. Seems like someone in the spotlight, either on TV or in magazines, should be required to get some coaching on how to present themselves. It would be a service to the players and the NBA.
    Anyone remember Chris Washburn’s famous ‘amphibious’ quote because he could use both his right and left hand?

  • http://slamonline.com Allenp

    BIke
    There were plenty of stories about reporters cleaning up George W. Bush’s commentary to make it appear lucid and non-horrible. It was a big debate in the journalism community, and there have been similar debates about athletes, although the new trend appears to be to stop cleaning it up for players, while cleaning it up for politicians.
    Hell, forget about Bush, how often does Obama say “Um” during a speech and how often do does pauses make it into the next day’s paper?
    T_money is perfectly correct about this and maybe you should try looking it up through a Google search.
    Zoom I hate both stereotypes too. I don’t think Enigmatic was using that one, but I could be wrong. I thought he was talking about people in general, not black people in particular.

  • http://thetroyblog.com Teddy-the-Bear

    The thing is, Russ was actually playing really well for the Thunder last night. He shot the ball quite efficiently and played under control.
    However, OKC was on a role with the bench so Scottie Brooks stuck to it. I think the decision to bench Westbrook had a lot more to do with James Harden than it did Eric Maynor. Maynor played some great minutes for them, but he stayed in the game mainly to ensure that Harden and Durant were taking most of the shots.
    With Westbrook, you know he’s not going to shoot less than Harden–but when Harden caught fire, subbing Maynor into the game ensured Harden as the second scorer on the floor.

  • Will

    These comments far outweigh the actual article.

  • http://thetroyblog.com Teddy-the-Bear

    I know the “stay in school,” was a joke, but Westbrook actually IS “still in school.” He takes college classes in the off-season, as does Durant. (at least they did a few seasons ago).

  • bike

    Allenp
    I suspect that when SLAM interviews an NBA player for a magazine piece, a significant amount of what the player says gets edited for clarity and content also. When a player says ‘ya know what I’m sayin” 50 times in three sentences, it won’t make next day’s paper either. But politicians, celebrities, and athletes alike all get hammered when they say something stupid on camera or in on the spot interviews.

  • http://slamonline.com Allenp

    That’s not what T_money was talking about.
    He was talking about editing for clarity and grammar, which definitely happens.

  • http://www.bulls.com Rigo Gonzalez

    I was indeed talking about people in general.

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