Rarely does an offensive rebound off an intentionally flubbed free throw work, but Oklahoma City Thunder teammates Steven Adams and Russell Westbrook pulled it off and made the most of it.
After Adams made his first attempt in Sunday’s game, he indicated that Westbrook should move up around the three-point arc, just in case. The Thunder center’s bricked free throw resulted in a perfect bounce back to himself, and he tossed it to Westbrook, who took a deep, deep three. Everything went right and Oklahoma City cut the Houston Rockets’ four-point lead to one.
The play demanded incredible awareness from Adams and Westbrook—but the Thunder followed that up by fouling Nene on an easy layup, which gave Houston three more points and effectively erased the cool thing that had just happened:
Because of Oklahoma City’s boneheaded defense, the Rockets kept their lead, and won Game 4, 113-109.