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, but the ball bobbled loose for a turnover and time soon ran out — on the first half.
Westbrook’s greatest achievement this season might be the way in which he has turned the extraordinary into the mundane. It happened again at Madison Square Garden on Monday night. Drama no longer comes in the form of whether he can assemble another triple-double (double digits in three statistical categories), but whether he can pull off the feat in a single half.