The Oklahoma City Thunder are done at last with the team that talked them into trading James Harden, knocked Russell Westbrook out of the playoffs and threatened to come all the way back from a 3-0 series deficit to take their dignity on top of it all. Read more after the jump.
The Houston Rockets obviously aren’t all the way out of OKC’s lives, given how intertwined these franchises will be for the foreseeable future after the late October blockbuster deal that made Harden a Rocket and the sideline rush from Houston’s Patrick Beverley that left Westbrook with a season-ending knee injury. The Thunder were nonetheless thrilled late Friday night to finally get away from them, at least for the next few months, by scrapping to a 103-94 triumph at Toyota Center that ended a costly, agonizing series in six games.
“I was starting to hate those guys,” Kevin Durant admitted at the post-game podium, paying tribute to the Rockets’ stubborn resilience but also revealing a measure of the tension that has built up over the past two weeks and, really, these last six months.
“I was starting to hate every one of them guys on their team. That’s what happens in a series … I’m sure they felt the same way about us.”
