The Thunder missed plenty of free throws on Wednesday night in Oklahoma City—nine to be exact.

One stands out as the defining moment of the franchise-opening loss to the Bucks.

With 2:15 to go in the fourth quarter, down 17, Thunder rookie Russell Westbrook missed the second of two attempts, only to slip down the right side of the lane and deflect the rebound off a Buck and out of bounds for an extra possession.

In many ways, it was as imperfect a play as the debut of full-time professional basketball in Oklahoma City itself.  (Sidebar: In a pregame press conference, NBA Commissioner David Stern even referred to OKC as Kansas City twice before catching and correcting himself.)

But on a night the Thunder could not rebound, the 6’3’’ backup point guard had four—all offensive.

For a team that has no perimeter shooting, Westbrook made the only three pointer.

On a roster that is reputed as being unable or unwilling to defend, Westbrook can and will.

And in front of a sellout crowd of 19,143 that needed a spark—desperately needed a reason to celebrate the debut of NBA basketball—the franchise’s No. 1 draft pick was it.

Granted, 48 minutes is a small sample size to evaluate a rookie and his roster.  But the most obvious takeaway from Wednesday’s 98-87 loss is that this team will take a step forward when Westbrook steps into the starting role. 

Seven-year veteran and fellow UCLA Bruin Earl Watson played an uninspired 26 minutes, scoring just eight points on 3-of-9 shooting.  He struggled to get by Luke Ridnour and Tyronn Lue off the dribble—exacerbating the Thunder’s offensive woes.

While he still has room for growth in terms of ball handling and court management, Westbrook’s first step is much quicker, and his teammates immediately got better looks with him running the offense. 
One of those teammates, former No. 1 selection Kevin Durant, was held scoreless with three fouls in the first half.  Afterwards, he said he couldn’t remember ever playing a first half like that at any level of his career.  And suffice it to say the Thunder will never win a game in which he fails to make a field goal before recess. 

However, Durant came alive with a dozen in the second half and played his best basketball with the rookie point guard on the floor.

After trailing by as many as 24 points, P.J. Carlesimo found his only productive five.  Westbrook and Durant seemed to feed off each other in the backcourt.  Desmond Mason, Chris Wilcox and team dad Joe Smith played great minutes up front, cutting the deficit to just 11 with five minutes to go.  In fact, Carlesimo admitted that he let that group play longer minutes than he wanted to because “we were finally playing our best basketball of the night.”

At the post-game podium, the head coach also said he would have some decisions to make in terms of the playing rotation, and even the casual observer would assume that getting Westbrook more minutes would be one of them. 

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Opening Night Notes

- Of the capacity crowd at the Ford Center, Carlesimo said there’s only so much the fans can do and that he wished his team would be able to play as well as the fans supported his Thunder.

- The Thunder’s first shot was taken (and missed) by Johan Petro.  The first made bucket came from Watson.

- Jeff Green still appears to be caught in no-man’s land in terms of his position on the floor.  His game says power forward, his size says small forward.  The former Hoya was just 2-of-7 with 5 turnovers.

- It’s not just three point shooting that will hamstring this team.  On a night where Charlie Villanueva comfortably stroked midranged jumpers on his way to a game-high 20 points for the Bucks, it was clear the Thunder need a player who can connect from the elbow and baseline.  Too often, Oklahoma City passed on 15-to-18 footers and instead picked up an offensive foul or turnover.

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