Royce Young: Russell Westbrook has been fined $10,000 and assessed a technical foul for an altercation with Rudy Gobert in Game 4. He will not face any further discipline.
Position: C
Born: 06/26/92
Height: 7-1 / 2.16
Weight:235 lbs. / 106.6 kg.
Salary: $21,224,719
Born: 06/26/92
Height: 7-1 / 2.16
Weight:235 lbs. / 106.6 kg.
Salary: $21,224,719
The NBA has a hard rule during altercations: Any players who leave the bench area receives a one-game suspension. Intent doesn’t matter. It’s not negotiable. The league simply doesn’t want more players entering a fracas. Russell Westbrook found a gray area last night. The Thunder star was waiting to check into Oklahoma City’s Game 4 loss to the Jazz when Raymond Felton fouled Rudy Gobert, um, unpleasantly. Gobert and Felton got into it, though not immediately. Once they did, Westbrook walked onto the court, and he and Gobert swiped at each other.
Eric Woodyard: Rudy Gobert expects @vivintarena to be loud for Game 3. “We’ve worked hard this year to be able to play in this atmosphere so hopefully they can help us get a win tonight,” @Rudy Gobert said. #TakeNote
Even with all the success they’ve achieved in the professional ranks with Adams making the NBA All-Rookie Second Team and Gobert leading the league in blocks in 2017 while making the All-NBA Second Team, those intense predraft workouts is where they gained mutual respect for each other. “Those were physical. Everything was physical so we’ve been playing against Steven Adams for a while,” Gobert said. “I think he’s got a lot better offensively as we all do, but he’s always been pretty athletic and pretty strong but he’s got more experience, he got a little floater, good post game so he did a good job.”
Even as their battling within this playoff intensity, there’s always appreciation for what the other man is doing for his team. “I actually quite liked him a lot. Went to lunch with Rudy,” Adams recalled at OKC’s shootaround on Wednesday. “He’s a good lad, mate. He’s a good lad. He’s a good dude.”
Kyle Goon: Rudy Gobert was asked today in the scrum if he had any particular statistical goals (points, rebounds, blocks) that he was trying to reach in games in the series. His answer was insightful: “Basketball is not that easy. We just got to get the best shots possible. We’ve got to use our strengths, obviously, as well as get open shots. If we get open threes, as long as we’re scoring, I don’t care. If they’re sucking in the paint and we get threes, you know, they’re probably going to say, ‘Rudy scored zero points,’ but we got good shots at the end of the day. That’s how you win games.”
