Winners and Losers from NBA's Opening Day

Opening Day was action-packed.

It had its blowouts and it had its thrilling down-to-the-last-shot finishes. It had five winners and five losers.

Not all the winners were on the winners list, though, and not all the losers are on the losers list.

Here are the five biggest winners and the five biggest losers from Opening Day.  

Loser: Russell Westbrook

Russell Westbrook might have been on the winning team, but they won in spite of him more than because of him. 

Westbrook's total lines don't look too bad—14 points, seven rebounds and six assists—but his overall game was much worse than those numbers reveal.

Westbrook added seven turnovers and shot horribly, hitting on only six of 17 field-goal attempts and committing five fouls. 

With last year's commotion at the end of the playoffs with Westbrook vying with Durant to be "the man" on the Thunder, this was an ominous beginning, even if the Thunder won the game. 

Winner: Rajon Rondo

Rajon Rondo had a huge chip on his shoulder after the rumors came out that the Celtics were offering him up as trade bait to acquire the then-New Orleans Hornets' superstar, Chris Paul.

Now he's set to prove himself. 

If the first game was any indication, he did so, having one of the best games of his career, scoring 31 points—the second-most he's ever scored—and dishing 13 assists. He also showed outside shooting, a rarity for Rondo. 

Rondo was splendid, even if it was in a losing cause. 

Loser: Dwight Howard

Dwight Howard might want out of Orlando.

Some speculated that he might be sandbagging after he played a horrendous first game in the preseason.

If they reacted to that, the reaction to last night's game might bring echos of the same charge.

Howard was pedestrian-with-a-cane. He went 4-of-12 from the field and 3-of-8 from the stripe, totaling just 11 points in the Magic's decisive loss to the Thunder, which wasn't as close as the final eight-point margin might indicate.

Howard had 11 boards, but the scoring vacuum from the big man was more Clark Kent than Superman. 

Winner: The Los Angeles Clippers Starting 5

Granted, it wasn't against one of the more elite teams in the league, but the Clippers looked great in their first regular season game, and the whole starting five looked splendid—well, at least for the second half. 

After a rocky first half, they got it going. 

Chris Paul scored 20 points and added nine assists.

Chauncey Billups added 21 points, five boards and four assists.

Caron Butler had a double-double with 11 points and 10 boards.

DeAndre Jordan had a devastating eight blocks.

Blake Griffin had 22 points and seven boards. 

All in all for the debut, the Clippers couldn't have done much better. 

Loser: Kobe Bryant

Kobe Bryant played a pretty good game for the most part, but the Black Mamba doesn't measure his games by how many points he scored.

He measures them in wins and losses, and it's not at all unfair to pin this one on him. 

First, he tried to force the ball to Pau Gasol instead of just holding it and taking a foul, setting up the Luol Deng steal, which in turn set up the Derrick Rose game-winning shot.

Then after that, he tried forcing a shot through Taj Gibson, Luol Deng and Joakim Noah, three adept shot-blockers. That's not a strategy that pays off. 

The Lakers lost the game, and while they wouldn't have been in it without Bryant's performance up to the last minute, in the last minute he cost them the game.

Bryant would be the first to agree. 

Winner: Derrick Rose and Luol Deng

Derrick Rose is on here primarily because he hit the first game-winning shot of his young career.

With the Bulls down by one, Rose left Derek Fisher (who spells his name wrong) fishing when he blew past him and in Pau Gasol's face went up, hung momentarily in the air and made an acrobatic shot over the Lakers center.

Luol Deng, who did everything including making the five points to trim the lead down to one, got the steal on Kobe Bryant's pass and then blocked his final shot, probably did more to help the Bulls win but won't get the same media attention.

Luol is living up to his "Glue-All" nickname already.

Loser: Kevin Garnett

Kevin Garnett double-choked.

First, he missed the game-tying shot. Afterwards, rather than be a gracious loser, he decided to choke Knicks forward and former teammate Bill Walker. 

Walker showed restraint and didn't throw any punches.

It remains to be seen whether there will be any suspensions or fines for this, but the choke was certainly worse than a lot of the girly punches that NBA players have thrown and gotten suspended for. 

Garnett's bush-league antics have gone over the top, and it's time for David Stern to send him a message. He's arguably the dirtiest player in the league now, and he really needs to be given some quiet time. 

Winner: Carmelo Anthony

Carmelo Anthony was brilliant in his first opening game performance in Madison Square Garden, particularly in the fourth quarter.

With the Knicks trailing by eight at the start of the final frame, Anthony matched the entire Celtics team, scoring 17 points and leading New York to a come-from-behind win against their rival, the Boston Celtics. 

On the game, Anthony had 37 points, eight boards, three assists and two steals.

Anthony has been considered a dark-horse candidate for MVP this year. While there are 65 games left, that's not a bad way to start things off. 

Loser: Dallas Mavericks

Nothing says disappointment like hanging your championship banner and then getting your hat handed to you by the team you beat to hang it.

The Heat were up by 30 for a huge part of the game, and the only reason the lead was whittled down to 11 points was that the Heat were playing like they didn't care for the bulk of the fourth quarter. 

Make no mistake about it—this was an absolutely humiliating loss for the Mavs.

At least the banner is still hanging there, though.  

Winner: LeBron James and the Miami Heat

LeBron James didn't have the fourth-quarter heroics of Carmelo Anthony or Derrick Rose, but that's largely because he made sure they weren't necessary as he rocked the Dallas Mavericks for 37 points, 10 boards and six dimes in just 36 minutes. 

Dwyane Wade added 26 points, eight boards and six dimes.

The rest of the team played stout, suffocating defense—well, for the first three quarters, anyway.

The Mavericks outscored the Heat 29-8 in the fourth in meaningless time to make the game appear closer than it was. 

LeBron made sure this wasn't going to come down to the last quarter. That's one way of solving that disappearing act.

He played like a man intent on winning a championship this year, getting the message out early. 

He wasn't trying to be the hero or the villain. He was playing to win. If he keeps up like this, the league could be in trouble.