The Denver Nuggets went into Oklahoma City Monday night to face the heavily favored Thunder — winners of 68 games in the regular season, and who swept the Memphis Grizzlies the first round of the 2025 Western Conference playoffs. But in Game One of the conference semifinals the Nuggets came away with a stunning victory over a team that finished 18 games ahead of them in the West standings.
Denver’s three-time NBA MVP Nikola Jokić led the way with 42 points on 15 for 29 shooting. Aaron Gordon pure in 22 and Jamal Murray tallied 21. Jokić also pulled down 22 rebounds and dished out six assists.
The Nuggets also got 18 points off the bench from 36-year-old, 17-year veteran Russell Westbrook, who was facing the team that made him the fourth overall pick in the 2008 NBA draft.
Westbrook Achieved Incredible Feat Four Times
Westbrook played his first 11 seasons for the Thunder, winning an MVP award of his own in 2016-2017, the first of three straight seasons in which he averaged a triple-double, becoming the first and, to date, only player in NBA history to achieve that feat multiple times.
He is one of only three players ever to average double figures in points, rebounds and assists over an entire season, following Oscar Robertson of the Rochester Royals (the franchise now known as the Sacramento Kings) in the 1961-1962 season.
Westbrook averaged a triple double a fourth time in the 2020-2021 season, his only one with the Washington Wizards. This year, Jokić became the third NBA player with a full-season triple double average.
But after Denver’s upset Game One victory, Westbrook was asked about a teammate from another of the six teams for which he has played. Westbrook spent the 2021-2022 season and most of 2022-2023 on the Los Angeles Lakers, where he formed the third member of a hoped-for “Big Three” with Anthony Edwards and, of course, Lebron James.
But the Big Three concept fell flat in Los Angeles. Just two years after the Lakers won the 17th championship in franchise history, the new James-Edwards-Westbrook version scraped together only 33 wins and missed the playoffs altogether.
‘Frosty’ Relationship With LeBron James
The collapse was to large extent blamed on Westbrook, who reportedly failed to create “chemistry” with James on the court, whole their relationship off the court was characterized as “frosty.”
At one point between Westbrook’s first and second season in Los Angeles, the two were spotted attending the same Lakers summer league game and ignoring each other’s presence.
That’s why it seemed newsworthy when, following Monday night’s game in Oklahoma, Westbrook was asked if had spoken with James, after James posted a message online saying that he would miss the annual Met Gala — an event that attracts A-list celebrities who show up to be seen — due to a knee injury.
ESPN NBA Reporter Ramona Shelburne asked Westbrook if he had given James any advice on what to wear to the high-glamor event, had he in fact attended.
Russell Westbrook: “I haven’t talked to Bron in I don’t how long.” 😬
(via @guerillasports_)
Westbrook, as seen in the video above, simply replies, “I did not. I haven’t talked to Bron in, I don’t know how long.”
Even three years and two teams later, it appears that the ill-feelings between the two future Hall of Famers continue to linger.
Is Westbrook a Hall of Famer? According to the Basketball Reference Hall of Fame probability model, James has a 100 percent chance of election to the Hall. Westbrook’s chances are marginally less, at 99.93 percent.
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