Justin Anderson elbowed Russell Westbrook in the face and the Thunder star didn’t like that one bit
The Western Conference first round series in the 2016 NBA Playoffs between the Oklahoma City Thunder and the Dallas Mavericks was quite chippy for essentially the entirety of the five games that it lasted. As the Thunder were essentially cruising to victory late in the fourth quarter of a decisive Game 5 on Monday night, though, things almost got really ugly with an incident between Russell Westbrook and Justin Anderson.
In that fourth quarter, there was a loose ball that Russell Westbrook went diving to the floor to try and pick up. However, the Thunder guard was met by a late dive into the pile by Anderson. As the Mavericks rookie got involved in the scrum, he delivered an elbow right to the jaw of Westbrook as he was going down.
As you’d expect and after the play was called dead, Russ was less than pleased as he went walkabout on the court trying to cool himself off and not retaliate against Anderson:
I’m all for hustling to the very end and remaining competitive, but I really don’t like that play from Anderson at all. He came in way late to the play and, in my view, Russell Westbrook had every right to be pissed off about it.
The Thunder picked up the win in Game 5, though, and now are onto the second round while the Mavs are eliminated. In the end, Westbrook may not have retaliated, but he and his team got the last laugh.
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