Russell Westbrook delivered one more epic double-double night plus helped erase an 18-point deficit. But fans rushed to his defense following a much debated overtime foul.
Russell Westbrook sparked two sets of conversations following the 134-133 overtime loss to the Portland Trail Blazers. Except one led to fierce defenders of Westbrook -- following a questionable foul call.
The first convo involved Westbrook hitting a double-double and helping spark the comeback charge -- as his Sacramento Kings were down 18.
But the second more debated chatter came on this foul call with under two seconds left, captured by NBC Sports California:
Portland's Deni Avdija made both free throw attempts to seal the win. Keon Ellis' final desperation heave failed to reach inside the hoop -- leading to the Trail Blazers escaping.
But again, Westbrook collected an army of defenders. Aaron Bruski of SportsEthos posted some closeup photos involving the sequence. The former NBC Sports personality states "Russell has no control of his body" while believing Portland's Avdija should've been called for this foul.
Another fan believes the league "has an agenda" against the perennial NBA All-Star. One more fan posted a screenshot of the "initiated contact" rule -- defending Westbrook on the call. Even Nets reporter for Syracuse.com Alec Strum was vocal about the move.
"That game-deciding foul on Russell Westbrook is one of the worst calls I’ve ever seen. Thinking Basketball had a whole video yesterday about how that shouldn’t be a foul," Strum posted.
The call again diminished what became an aggressive scoring night for Westbrook. The 37-year-old still showed his attacking side against the Blazers.
Westbrook wasn't the lead scorer of the night. That title went to DeMar DeRozan -- who dropped 35 points and sent the game into overtime on his turnaround jumper that made it 115-115.
Westbrook, though, delivers his second 20-point outing in his last four games. It's also the sixth time this season that the veteran guard reached the 20 points or more mark.
He didn't earn his first points until the 8:39 mark of the first -- making an eight-foot two-pointer that cut the lead to 11-10 in favor of Portland. That became his only basket of the first.
He had a relatively quiet second quarter too -- getting on the stat sheet at the 4:08 mark with a running layup.
The fourth was when Westbrook really went off scoring wise. He sparked the late fourth quarter rally by hitting one more running layup -- this one off a Maxime Raynaud assist at the 4:25 mark. He added one more dashing two-point layup with 21.4 left. Turned out he had one more charging layup in him during OT -- pulling off one more with 1:26 to go.
But unfortunately, Westbrook will be mentioned for a controversial foul call the next time his name sprouts on the web. With multiple NBA fans calling out the refs for that decision.