I come not to bury Russell Westbrook, but to praise him.
After a Game 4 performance that could most charitably be described as "selfish," the Thunder's star point guard is being heavily criticized. Some of the scorn is justified. As a whole, the team looked stiff, lacked confidence, and failed to execute, yet somehow they only lost by three points. On one possession late in the fourth, Westbrook made one of his patented wild drives into the lane that ended in an impossible layup attempt. Upset that the referees did not bail him out with a foul call, he stayed behind to complain while the Nuggets pushed the ball to the other end. His man, unguarded, dribbled to the middle of the floor where the rest of the defense was forced to collapse—you know, since the person assigned to stop him from getting to the basket unmolested was busy arguing with a ref 80 feet away—and he kicked it out to a wide open three point shooter who easily hit the shot.
Three points. The final margin.
In addition, Westbrook played most of the game in “Superman mode,” an expression coined to describe a player who appoints himself to carry the team. He took thirty shots, twelve more than Kevin Durant who led the league in scoring. His pedestrian five assists were nearly matched by his three turnovers, and most egregiously, Westbrook jacked up seven three point attempts, making none.
This is the bad. However, it is not like Westbrook was the only player having a sub-par game for Oklahoma City. James Harden spent the game acting like the timid, afraid-to-shoot shooting guard that he was before the NBA trade deadline propelled him into his new role. Meanwhile, he let J.R. Smith go off on the other end. Daequan Cook stepped out of bounds twice after receiving a pass to take an uncontested three. Even Kevin Durant, the player most people wanted taking some of those shots in lieu of Russell, shot only 8 of18 from the floor. That is 44% compared to the 40% Westbrook made.