Portland Fans Who witnessed greatness in the Moda Center will never forget April 23rd 2019. Game 5, Round 1 of The NBA Playoffs. The Portland Trailblazers sent the Oklahoma City Thunder home with their underrated Star player Damian Lillard dropping 50 Pts, 10/10 3pts Made & w/ CJ McCollum Officially broke the franchise 1st Round Exit Streak. For Russell Westbrook, this became his 3rd season 1st round exit since Kevin Durant left the franchise. What does this say about Oklahoma City? The franchise has to accept the fact that Westbrook is not a great team leader. Instead of maintaining the lead with calm cool & collective planning and execution, he gets frustrated, panics and literally shoots his team out of the playoffs against an injured Trailblazers on their road to redemption for their previous postseasons being cut short by a pair of 1st round sweeps by the Golden State Warriors & New Orleans Pelicans. In my opinion, Coach Billy Donovan may not be the coach for OKC to return back to the Western Conference Finals or NBA Finals. I say this mainly due to his inability to coach Westbrook out of his inefficient shooting streaks that have cost them close games all season. I also feel that the front office needs to surround Westbrook with pure shooters (Cavs 2.0) to compliment his “Run & Gun” style of offense. If he was surrounded by strong wingmen surrounding the perimeter his Triple Doubles would become more effective and possibly lead to more wins in the postseason. Paul George did what he could but with Westbrook taking more shots in the Portland series than George, I can‘t see this version of the Thunder surviving the summer of elite Free Agency & the unpredictable 2019 NBA Draft. They have reached a ceiling and a Salary Cap....I hope the Front Office can make it all make sense for the next season.
