Ibaka Grows!

Ibaka's Length! "Clang!"

With Tony Allen rotating over on help defense.

Westbrook's seemingly certain drive to the rim hit iron and bounced out.

And it wasn't just once.

It was... several possessions.

It wasn't that Tony Allen's defense made it impossible for Westbrook to score.

He could still convert some attacks.

But his efficiency was noticeably worse than it had been at the start of the game.

More importantly, before the game and now.

Westbrook felt a huge gap. He felt like Tony Allen had actually locked him down.

That irritated him.

He desperately wanted to attack Tony Allen's defense, score forcefully over him, even throw down an absolutely violent poster dunk on him.

He wanted to prove that he had the power to crush Tony Allen.

But he had forgotten that Tony Allen was not defending alone. Curry was there as the first line of defense as well.

Westbrook was going one-on-two and still managing to score on some possessions. In truth, he was playing quite well.

He had simply underestimated Tony Allen too much and overlooked Curry's subtle defensive presence.

As a result.

Westbrook got a little heated.

And once Russ got heated, he tended to make some baffling plays on the court.

For example...

Going one-on-three or one-on-four, refusing to pass no matter what, forcing his way to the basket only to get brutally blocked, or missing his drives by a mile.

He would gamble on defense as well.

Once his offense started going poorly, he might even get into a verbal clash with an opponent, becoming even more irritable and piling up more turnovers.

Tonight...

His heated behavior was this: whenever he got the ball, the all-around triple-double king turned into a reckless brute who only knew how to charge forward.

How effective was that?!

Naturally,