Even without the help of Kevin Durant and Jeff Green, the Oklahoma City Thunder were able to receive help from their bench including a huge 31-point effort from point guard Russell Westbrook which helped propel the Thunder to a five point win, denying the Boston Celtics a chance as the first to 10 wins in the Eastern Conference.
For the Thunder, James Harden and Serge Ibaka came up big in place of the injured Durant and Green (respectively) as they combined for 25 points. Rookie Eric Maynor also chipped in as he scored nine points off the bench for the Thunder.
The real story of the night was the effort from Westbrook as even despite his team high seven turnovers, he scored 31 points with six assists, in a night where the Thunder didn't have two of their three best players and was able to take down a really good Celtics team and outplayed fellow point guard Rajon Rondo.
For the Celtics, it was a solid offensive effort from the big men as Kevin Garnett scored 16 points and Shaquille O'Neal chipped in 11 points. However, it wasn't great for the two in the rebound department as the two combined for a total of eight rebounds.
Paul Pierce was limited in points as he only scored 14 points, versus his previous two games of scoring at least 20 points a night. Pierce did shoot 7 for 13 from the field and did not attempt a three-point basket.
Ray Allen struggled in this game as he only scored 8 points and was 0-2 from beyond the arc. Allen was 3-9 total from the field, his worst shooting performance this season.
It was another solid effort from Rajon Rondo as he scored 14 points but only managed 7 assists. This was just the second time Rondo didn't record more than 10 assists in a game.
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