|
TORONTO, March 17 (Xinhua) -- Oklahoma City Thunder guard Russell Westbrook recorded 24 points, 16 assists, and 10 rebounds for his 34th triple double of the season in the team's dominant 123-102 victory over the Toronto Raptors in the NBA on Thursday night.
With the win, Oklahoma City extends their winning streak to four games and improves to 39-29 on the season. They are half a game away from tying the Los Angeles Clippers for fifth place in the Western Conference.
The six-time All-Star played a total of 28 minutes and did not see any action during the fourth quarter. This is the 12th time this season that Westbrook has recorded a triple-double in three quarters or less.
Thunder head coach Billy Donovan said he was impressed with Westbrook and the team's collective performance during the day.
"I was really pleased with the way we played. I thought we played with a high level of intensity from start to finish," said Donovan after the game. "Offensively we had 33 assists and were unselfish and we defended like we needed to and generated a lot of good shots," he added.
Nearly half of the team's assists belonged to Westbrook, who had 16. The Raptors as a team finished with just 15. Westbrook has recorded at least 13 assists in each of the past four games, and averaged 15.5 assists per game during that span.
Westbrook explained that the high number of assists was the result of the opposing team defending him aggressively with multiple defenders.
"They're an aggressive defensive team that traps a lot and I was able to use that to my advantage and take on two people and make sure other guys got open," said Westbrook following Thursday's win.
Through 68 games, Westbrook has 34 triple-doubles and is averaging 31.7 points, 10.5 rebounds and 10.4 assists. He is on pace to become the second player to average a triple-double in a season and tie the single-season record of 41 triple doubles. Both records were set by Hall of Famer Oscar Robertson in the 1961-62 season.
Westbrook also leads active players with 71 career-triple doubles. He is ranked fifth all time behind Robertson (181), Magic Johnson (138), Jason Kidd (107) and Wilt Chamberlain (78).
Despite the media attention from his historic season, Westbrook is more focused on positioning the team up for a deep playoff run.
"We're just trying to take it one day at a time and try to make sure we're playing the best basketball towards the end of the season," said Westbrook.
