Russell Westbrook needed one more assist for another triple-double in his ruthless campaign across the N.B.A., so he drove the lane and tried to thread a pass to Joffrey Lauvergne, his teammate with the Oklahoma City Thunder. Instead, the ball bobbed loose for a turnover, and time soon ran out — on the first half.
Westbrook’s greatest achievement this season might be the way he has turned the extraordinary into the mundane. It happened again in that game at Madison Square Garden on Monday night. Drama no longer comes in the form of whether he can assemble another triple-double — reaching double digits in three statistical categories — but whether he can pull off the feat in a single half.