Thunder’s young guns still on top of the West

PORTLAND - Reuters

Oklahoma City Thunder’s superstar forward Kevin Durant (35) points to crowd after his dunk against the Portland Trail Blazers during the two teams’ NBA game. REUTERS photo

Oklahoma City continued to lead the way in the West while Portland maintained their slide after the conference-leading Thunder delivered a convincing 109-95 road win over the Trail Blazers on March 27
Russell Westbrook bounced back from a quiet outing two days ago with a game-high 32 points and eight rebounds, Kevin Durant added 25 and the Thunder (38-12) built on Sunday’s impressive triumph over Miami with a fourth straight win.

They now lead the West by three games over San Antonio.

The Blazers (23-27), promising in the early season, have plummeted in recent weeks and are 3-4 since firing coach Nate McMillan.

Portland fell 14 points behind after the first quarter and trailed by 20 early in the third.

“It was more us than them,” Portland forward LaMarcus Aldridge told reporters. “We gave them easy looks. We didn’t make things as difficult as we could have. It was like they were taking warm-up shots the first half.”

J.J. Hickson scored 21 and Aldridge added 20 for the Blazers.