Amid the carnage that was the Denver Nuggets’ Game 7 blowout of the Los Angeles Clippers on Saturday, it needed to really feel respectable to be Russell Westbrook.
The professional guard had a strong two-season job with the Clippers, yet was rejected last offseason as component of a profession to the Utah Jazz that landed protective professionalKris Dunn At 35 years of ages, Westbrook was forgoed by Utah and continued to sign up with the Nuggets in totally free firm.
Westbrook is a far away far from his years as an All-Star, yet he slotted in as a bench item for a Denver group hopeless for deepness and did his common point, for far better or even worse. It was much better on Saturday, when Westbrook swiped the sphere from his old group while up 29 factors in the 4th quarter and took a triumph dunk.
Then he held on the edge up until the authorities offered him the technological nasty he was plainly trying to find, and shouted “I don’t give a f*** as he revved up a delighted Ball Arena crowd.
“I thought about, when I was about to get off the rim backward. I just said, ‘nah’ I’m gonna stay up here and try to break the rim. And then the tech came,” Westbrook claimed after the video game. “Intensity, just the emotions and everything. Just for me, the fans here are great. Give me a lot of energy, I feed off of them. The moment, just a lot, I think for all of us and for the fans, a sign of relief that we kind of had the game in hand.”
Westbrook finished the game with 16 points on 5-of-9 shooting, plus five rebounds, five assists, five steals and two turnovers.
Meanwhile, Dunn finished with three points on 1-of-4 shooting after falling out of the starting lineup for Game 7. He was a defensive standout for the Clippers this season, but saw his role shrink significantly over the course of the Nuggets series.
Westbrook very clearly took the trade that exchanged him for Dunn personally.
Russell Westbrook walking into the Nuggets’ locker room: “Picked the wrong person, didn’t they?”
— Vinny Benedetto (@VBenedetto) May 4, 2025
The loss once again ends the Clippers’ season in disappointing fashion, while the Nuggets will advance to face another old team of Westbrook’s, the top-seeded Oklahoma City Thunder, who spent the first round ripping apart the Memphis Grizzlies.
It might be a bit harder to get bragging rights in that one.