Don’t expect Russell Westbrook to panic over the Oklahoma City Thunder’s latest hiccup in a season that has had several of them. After Sunday’s 108-104 home loss to the Los Angeles Lakers sent OKC to its fourth straight defeat, he was talking up the struggles the Thunder have endured of late.
* Recap: Lakers 108, Thunder 104
Since the calendar turned to 2018, the Thunder are 10-7 with eight of those wins coming during the team’s win streak that ran from Jan. 13-28. The Thunder have allowed 100 or more points in three of their four losses since then and are 14th in Defensive Rating (106.1) after ranking eighth in that department (103.6) during their win streak.
Royce Young of ESPN.com has more on the Thunder, who are reeling since losing guard Andre Roberson for the season with a ruptured patella tendon:
“It’s fun, man. Adversity is great,” Westbrook said. “Me personally, I love adversity. It gives you an opportunity to bring your teammates together, bring everybody together and look forward to positive things. Throughout the season, there’s going to be a lot of ups and downs, but we never flinch. That’s one thing about this organization, about our team: We never flinch based on what’s going on. We always stay together.”
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Roberson’s starting replacement, 19-year-old rookie Terrance Ferguson, has scored two points on four shots in the recent five starts. The Thunder have been mostly stable defensively without Roberson, but coach Billy Donovan said he’s worried about their perimeter defense.
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The Thunder have had one other four-game losing streak this season: in their figure-it-out phase back in November, when they fell to four games under .500 at 8-12. Players say this lull is different because they have confidence that they can get back on track.
“When you drop a couple games, it gets harder and harder to win that one game to kind of get the ship right,” Carmelo Anthony said. “I think that’s something that we’re dealing with right now. We’ve been here before. We’ve been here, we’ve pushed the ship in the right direction. We won a couple in a row. Now we’ve lost a couple in a row. So it’s on us to make that adjustment and get back on the right foot.”
“We’ll be all right,” Anthony said. “We hit a little rough patch right now, but we’ll be fine. It’s not something to start overreacting and start pointing fingers and trying to figure out exactly what’s going on. We know what’s going, and we’re the only ones that will be able to fix it.”
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