The NBA's favorite friends-turned-foes saga wrote its latest chapter last night, as Kevin Durant's Golden State Warriors squared off against Russell Westbrook's Oklahoma City Thunder. It was a game that yielded more than its share of tense moments, including a nose-to-nose standoff between the two former teammates. Check out a clip of the moment from the game, in case you missed it.
It was a brief look into what has become a pretty intense rivalry over the years, getting the OKC crowd all riled up in the process. For what it's worth, the Thunder beat the suddenly human-seeming Warriors, with Westbrook taking the crown in the individual battle he had against Durant. Brodie finished one assist shy of a triple-double, totaling 34 points, 10 rebounds, nine assists and four steals on 13-of-27 shooting. KD wasn't shabby either, posting 21 points and five rebounds on 8-of-17 shooting. However, all the talk after the game was about his confrontation with Russ in the above video and, to no one's surprise, Durant tried to downplay the severity of the exchange.
"Did you watch the game?" he asked, stone-faced, when a reporter brought up the totally valid question of his back-and-forth with the league's reigning MVP. It was a particularly ironic response given that, earlier in that same media scrum, Durant emphasized how one of his goals last night was to "not let emotion seep in" to his performance on the court. That seems at odds with what he actually did for most of the night, clearly mouthing the word p***y when speaking to Westbrook after the whistle. All that aside, KD is claiming that his supposed beef with Russ "is not real, so please don't believe it." Sure...
The game comes at a point in the season where both the Warriors and the Thunder have been, in their own ways, struggling a bit out of the gate. The Dubs, while still sitting in second place in the West with a 13-5 record, have not looked like the indefatigable force of nature they were last season, while the Thunder improved to 8-9 on the season and are clearly still going through some growing pains after adding Paul George and Carmelo Anthony to their roster in the offseason.