Tonight at 10:30 p.m. ET the Oklahoma City Thunder (5-1) will be led into Staples Center by their two studs, Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook, for an ESPN matchup with Chris Paul and the Clippers that can be live streamed for free here. Thunder fans can hear the game on WWLS 98.1 while Clippers fans can do the same on KFWB 980 AM.
The Thunder have never truly replaced James Harden in their offense, and have now lost the nominal replacement from last year, Kevin Martin, who chipped in 14 points a night and canned nearly 43 percent of his 3-pointers.
Despite that, the Thunder are 5-1 behind the strength of superstar Durant, and the rapidly recovered Westbrook. Westbrook was expected to miss up to six weeks of the season, but instead returned after two games and has put up 19 points per game since coming back.
Westbrook will be even more valuable than his scoring would indicate; he's one of the few point guards in the NBA athletic enough to hinder Paul and not allow him to impose his will whenever he wants.
To win tonight, though, Oklahoma City will need to tighten up their defense rather than rely on heroics from Durant, as they did in a recent overtime win over Washington. OKC was down by as many as 12 points in that quarter before Durant rescued them.
"That was definitely a resilient win," coach Scott Brooks said. "It was that never-quit mentality that we've always believed in and that's what happened tonight. We just battled and battled and battled and gave ourselves a chance to win down the stretch."
Against the Clippers such late fireworks likely won't be enough, especially if Paul is right about the team's defense improving. "We're almost there (defensively)," Paul said.
"A lot of times tonight we were in the right spots. But I think we've still got to get better rebounding and that's collectively. We can't rely on Blake and D.J. (DeAndre Jordan) to get all the rebounds. We've got to get in there and collectively rebound."
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