DALLAS -- Late in the third quarter, Serge Ibaka splashed a 3-p[ointer from the left corner and let out what best can be described as a combination of a strut and a shimmy -- a shtrummy? -- making sure to leave his right hand held high. Ibaka was feeling it, and himself.
Three possessions later, Ibaka did it again, this time from the other corner, his 46th 3-pointer on the season, one more than he has made from deep his previous five seasons combined. It put Ibaka at 24 points after three quarters, on a smoldering 10-of-13 shooting, including 3-of-4 from 3.
The Oklahoma City Thunder led the Dallas Mavericks 88-81.
Ibaka sat at the beginning of the fourth quarter, and his next shot didn't come until 5:45 was left in the game, giving him a season-high 26 on 11-of-14. That shot? It came in transition, a lob from Russell Westbrook that Ibaka laid in on the break, putting the Thunder up by four. It was his last shot attempt of the game.
The Thunder lost to the Mavericks 112-107.
What happened in between? Russell Westbrook happened, for better and for worse.
It was the quintessential Westbrook performance, the total Russ experience. Brilliant, breathtaking playmaking. Dumb, head-scratching decisions. Fearless scoring. Forced shots. Overwhelming, jaw-dropping athleticism. Narrow-minded, crunch-time tunnel vision. Competitive spirit, and self-combustion.
His final line tells the roller-coaster story best: 18 points, but on 6 of-23 shooting. Nine rebounds, nine assists and five steals, but with five turnovers and five fouls.
"He didn't shoot the ball well," Thunder coach Scott Brooks said. "He made some tough decisions, but he competed. He put us in a position to have a chance to win this game."
Brooks uses those two words a lot in describing Westbrook's crunchtime choices -- "tough decisions" -- which I think is code for, "He did some things I didn't like."
But there's no question Brooks is right about the last part; Westbrook gave the Thunder a chance. Without Kevin Durant for a sixth straight game, the mercurial All-Star point guard was as electric as erratic, scoring back-to-back buckets to give the Thunder the lead with four minutes left. But as the world turns with him, the next possession ended with a turnover and Westbrook briefly losing his head to foul Dirk Nowitzki some 90 feet from the basket with the Mavs in the bonus. Nowitzki hit both, giving the Mavs a two-point lead, which they increased to four after a Thunder turnover.
Reggie Jackson hit a 3 out of a broken play to get the Thunder back within one. They got a stop, but Westbrook hurried up the floor searching for a sliver of space to fire a flailing 15-footer that caught nothing but the cool American Airlines Center air. He then lost Rajon Rondo on a backcut layup, missed a driving layup, fouled Dirk again, then turned the ball over the next four possessions.
As Brooks said, the Thunder don't even have the opportunity to screw up crunch time without Westbrook's inspired play. But here's the issue, and why his critics are provided such consistent, albeit annoying, ammunition: You don't win close games in the first three quarters. You make or break it in the fourth.
A constant theme for the Thunder has been their late-game offense, which is notoriously unimaginative. One action -- two at most -- with the fallback being a ball-handler creating a shot for himself or someone else. Some of the simplicity is intentional, because a lack of imagination also gives their best players license to operate in their preferred environment: improvisational, instinctual, one-on-one freelancing basketball. When Westbrook and Durant are tag-teaming the final few minutes, the possessions might not always be pretty, but if the ball remains in one of their hands -- most often Durant's -- there's a good chance that supreme ability will trump simplistic execution.
Without Durant, though, Westbrook sees it as his place to go solo. That's not a product of inherent selfishness, it's simple mathematics. The Thunder rely on two guys in crunch time. Two minus one equals one (plus four other guys standing around). There's a unspoken lack of trust, with the ball finding a way to stick in select hands. It's not unique to only the Thunder that the offense changes in close games late. It's a natural thing in basketball. When things get tight, you want to end possessions with your best players making the plays. Except the Thunder seem to scrap a lot of the playbook, leaving a player like Ibaka, who on this given night was cooking, a constant decoy as Westbrook assumes command.
"Yeah, we've got the same plays," Westbrook said of the fourth-quarter offense. "We can't switch plays. The first, the second and the third, the plays don't change. Can't change the plays."
It's true the Thunder are running their stuff in the fourth, but it's pretty obvious there's a different mentality to the way they're executing.
Ibaka averages 10.1 shot attempts the first three quarters this season, and gets only 2.6 in the fourth. His usage percentage dips from more than 20, to 16.9. Westbrook on the other hand? His usage percentage goes from 38.5 to an eye-popping 41.3 in the fourth quarter, and he takes more shots per 100 possessions than any other quarter. It's a simple question: Why can't the Thunder get Ibaka shots late in games?
"I don't know," Westbrook said flatly. "We've just got to see what sets and see what's going on and see what's our advantages."
Ibaka remains diplomatic about it, resisting any urge to call for more crunch-time shots. He knows his role on the team, and is willing to ride along on the Russell roller-coaster just like everyone else.
"My first job always is defense with this team," he said. "Some games I'm going to shoot 15 [times], so I don't really worry about my shots. All I can do is keep working and be ready for the opportunities when they come."
You can't place Westbrook in the confines of an overly structured offense. It would be like buying a Lamborghini and driving only in school zones. To get the great you have to deal with the bad. Westbrook has won the Thunder a lot more games than he has lost. His great is so great that it overwhelms the three or four minutes of bad.
It's just the bad moments tend to come at the worst moments, the parts of the game when winning and losing often reside on a knife edge. It's about choices, and Westbrook is willing to admit he made a number of wrong ones Sunday against the Mavs. And in the interim, without Durant to mediate, Westbrook has more to make than he's used to.