On Sunday night, Russell Westbrook put on a show once again for the Oklahoma city Thunder scoring a career-high 54 points. Westbrook also added nine rebounds and eight assists to the stat sheet, but the Thunder still ending up losing to the Indiana Pacers.
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Following another incredible night by the MVP candidate, all the attention surrounding the best scoring performance of his career was the amount of shots he took to get to 54 points. Westbrook had 43 shot attempts in the loss to the Pacers and has received a fair amount of criticism as a result.
Interestingly enough, one fellow NBA superstar has come to Westbrook’s defense. Five-time NBA champion Kobe Bryant took to Twitter on Monday with a hilarious meme taking a shot at the media for the criticism of Westbrook’s field goal attempts:
#StopIt pic.twitter.com/pPRO8BnF4P
— Kobe Bryant (@kobebryant) April 13, 2015
What ALL TIME Great went 19 for 43 in a game 3 nba finals loss? #lookItup #onlyringsmatter #byAnyMeans
— Kobe Bryant (@kobebryant) April 14, 2015
Ppl will always find a way to critique Only way to shut up critics is to WIN That's the challenge myself and Mj accepted #CantcritiqueRings
— Kobe Bryant (@kobebryant) April 14, 2015
Of all the players in the league to come to Westbrook’s defense, it isn’t all that surprising that Bryant would be the one to do it. Kobe has received similar criticism numerous times throughout the course of his career spanning almost two decades.
Bryant has been constantly criticized by the media, even when winning championships or keeping the Los Angeles Lakers in title contention, and seems to relate to Westbrook in more ways than one. Kobe has said that Westbrook plays with a similar competitive fire and rage that he has in the past. Bryant clearly respects the Thunder star and wasn’t fond of the comments criticizing him with the league’s leading scorer simply trying to clinch the final playoff spot in the Western Conference.
The Thunder are currently battling with Anthony Davis’ New Orleans Pelicans to clinch the eighth seed in the West. With only two games left for both teams, and identical records at 43-37, it has come down to the wire in terms of determining which team will face the top-seeded Golden State Warriors in the first round of the postseason.
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