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Thunder stuff Nets on the eve of Turkey Day, 110-99

By Anthony Puccio
Mark D. Smith-USA TODAY Sports

The Thunder didn't need any turkeys to cook. Instead they cooked the Nets, 110 -99, in Oklahoma City on the eve of Thanksgiving, serving the Nets a nice platter of dunks and plenty of threes in the fourth quarter.

The worst of it: The Nets fall to 3-12 with a duel against LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers this Saturday.

The Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook show was just too much for the Nets. Durant put home 30 points on 11-of-18 shooting, while Westbrook had 25 points, 12 assists, five rebounds and four steals.

Brooklyn did a good job of hanging with OKC and actually led at one point in the third quarter, but then the fourth quarter happened.

The game was tied up at 84 apiece until the Thunder finally struck. They nailed three three-pointers in the span of a minute and went up by 12 midway through the fourth.

That was only the beginning of a 17-4 run in which OKC nailed five three-pointers in the span of three minutes. The Nets hit just three three-pointers on the night. Shane Larkin hit two of them.

Joe Johnson was 0-for-5 from deep and 2-for-11 on the night.

On the bright side, the Nets frontcourt duo of Brook Lopez and Thaddeus Young did the best they could with the limited support they had. Lopez finished with 26 points and eight rebounds, while Young chipped in 18 points and eight rebounds. Rondae Hollis-Jefferson finished with a double-double of 11 points and 11 rebounds, his second double-double of the season. Obviously very good signs from the rookie.

To make up for the poor three-point shooting, the Nets scored 62 points in the paint.

As Bojan Bogdanovic continued to struggle, Andrea Bargnani and Shane Larkin have been forced to step up off the bench. Bargnani scored 11 points in eight minutes during a time where the Nets starters needed a breather. He scored 13 on the night in 16 minutes.

Meanwhile, Larkin continued his stellar play with 10 points and two three-pointers. He's now 13-of-24 from deep this season, a 52.4 percent clip. He also had six assists.

Other than those two, the rest of the bench combined for just seven points.

Here we are yet again, a well-played game from the Nets with a poor fourth quarter. But all in all, the expectations can't be too high especially when playing a power duo like Westbrook and Durant.

"They just made big shots," Young said post-game, talking about the fourth quarter. "That was kind of the knock-out punch for us. We were already down a little bit, but those two or three threes that they hit in transition was huge for them because they could control the game and get into a momentum."

For more on the Thunder, check them out at Welcome to Loud City.

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