Sometimes people have conspiracy theories, and when they take on a life of their own, they can turn into anything. Take for example a theory that the first meeting between the Lakers and Thunder took place last night, and the Thunders two best players go off for 36 and 33.
Could there have been an underlying motivation, or something to spur the Thunders dynamic duo on? If you buy into the conspiracy theory of Rich Bucher, The Lakers had this explosion coming for months now.
Pro Basketball Talk via Rich Bucher of CSN Bay Area is reporting that Durant and Westbrook were spurred on last night by all the trash talking Kobe Bryant did during the summer Olympics.
…source says the Black Mamba talked relentless smack during the Olympics that the Thunder stars weren’t going back to the Finals after the Lakers acquired Steve Nash and then added Dwight Howard right before the U.S. played Spain for the gold medal. Kobe also made a point of guarding Westbrook during practices and pumping him up, the theory being that he wanted to incite Russ to bump heads with KD over who the team’s best player is. (If you think that’s too conspiratorial to be real, you don’t know Kobe.) KD, in particular, got tired of hearing him. For what it’s worth: KD and Westbrook’s combined 69 points is the highest single-game total they’ve posted this season.
I think KD and Russell just wanted to go off against the Lakers and let them know who still ran the Western Conference. Regardless of what trash talk Bryant was directing towards them.