2:20pm: Rockets head coach Mike D’Antoni said on Friday that Westbrook will go through today’s practice and that the team expects him to be “ready to go” for Game 5, barring any setbacks. According to Tim MacMahon of ESPN.com (Twitter link), D’Antoni anticipates some sort of minutes restriction for Westbrook, but no specifics have been discussed yet.
9:44am: Rockets point guard Russell Westbrook is expected to play in Game 5 against Oklahoma City after missing the first four games of the series due to a strained right quadriceps, a source tells Mark Berman of FOX 26 Houston (Twitter link).
Westbrook, who was initially ruled out for Game 5, was upgraded to questionable on Wednesday and intended to test his quad on the court before the game to see if he’d be able to go. When players decided not to play Wednesday’s games in protest of social and racial injustices, he didn’t get the opportunity to test the injury.
However, ESPN’s Tim MacMahon and Adrian Wojnarowski report that Westbrook participated in a 5-on-5 intrasquad scrimmage held by the Rockets on Thursday. While the report doesn’t confirm that Westbrook intends to play in Game 5, a source told ESPN that the former MVP “looked as explosive as ever.”
The NBA hasn’t officially announced a new date and time for Game 5 of the Rockets/Thunder series, but there’s an expectation that it will be rescheduled for Saturday. The series is currently tied at two games apiece.
I am more interested in Lakers vs Rockets game
So what? That’s not the bracket. Have you tried Halo yet?— or some first-person shooting game? You can change the game whenever you want to, speed it up as necessary, maybe go into a mode like “trade trade trade”. The NBA uses actual humans doing human things and ignoring you. You need to go virtual.
Rockets are only tied. They have with OKC possibly the only meaningful games in the current round. They just got very lucky with the delay— Westbrook needed it while ShaiSG did not.
The Lakers got very lucky too when Dame got hurt.
Blazers were never winning that series unfortunately Dame Healthy or not.
I really hope HOU can pull it out and set up the Rockets Lakers series. We need that series to settle the last year of trash talk.
The Blazers have no interior defense, they have/had no chance with or without Dame-
First game was a welcome sight for the Lakers as a wake up call and shows Vogel can gameplan thru out a series game to game
Careful what you wish for Harden, Lakers designed very well for 7 game series and have been playing great together the last few games- You will have to win game 1 to have a shot imo if that series goes down
Obviously the Rockets would rather face a decimated Blazers team than the Lakers right now, but if both of their potential round 2 opponents were at full strength they would still match up far better with LA.
The Rockets are finally at 100%, but unfortunately the Lakers are still missing key pieces.
Even though I wanted Chris to play well. And make Rockets Tremble a bit. Lakers vs Rockets is a better matchup. The bigs vs guards series. Even though they can’t stop AD. They have plenty of wings for Bron. Considering they are depleted at guard. Less playmakers. It could make for fun series. Harden and Westbrook catch fire. They can give LA trouble, go 7. Rockets better not look past Thunder,
The Rockets can finally go 9-deep (with their current roster) for basically the first time this season. I would expect the minutes distribution for game 5 to resemble something this: Harden-35, Tucker-33, Gordon-31, Covington-30, Green-27, House-26, Westbrook-25, Rivers-19, McLemore-14.
Remarkable. And Gordon is looking stable for someone with such sharp movements.