The Late Lake Show: Durant's 43 Lights Up Los Angeles

Kevin Durant had one last scoring explosion before the All Star break.

Friday, February 14th 2014, 1:31 am

By: News 9


Lights, camera, KD. 

For three quarters Thursday night, it looked like a rag-tag group of backups were going to take down the NBA's top team. 

Then in the fourth, Kevin Durant scored 19 points to make sure the natural order of the Western Conference was maintained.  The league's leading scorer finished with 43 points, 12 rebounds and seven assists as the Thunder held on for a wild 107-103 win in Los Angeles.

Oklahoma City outscored Los Angeles 35-21 in the game's final period. 

"We were playing terrible the first three quarters, terrible," Durant admitted postgame.  "We had to find some energy.  Our bench did a great job. (Derek) Fish, Nick (Collison), Andre Roberson, they did a great job of getting us back in this game and I just did my best to finish it."

As Durant referenced, former Laker Derek Fisher stepped up again off the Thunder bench.  Fisher scored 12 points and grabbed three steals, while Jeremy Lamb chipped in 11 points. 

While those two provided the a majority of the bench scoring, Andre Roberson may have made the biggest impact.  Thunder coach Scott Brooks, noticing a lack of energy from his team, inserted Roberson into the lineup in the second half and he gave OKC a spark.  Roberson scored just four points, but played great defense, grabbed loose balls and finished with a +13 in just 13 minutes. 

The Lakers, despite playing with just eight healthy players, gave a tremendous effort.  Six of those eight finished with double-figure scoring, including Kendall Marshall. 

The second-year point guard from North Carolina scored 14 points and diced the Thunder's defense up with 17 assists.  Chris Kaman scored 19 points and grabbed 10 boards for LA. 

The Lakers led almost the entire game.  In fact, this was the first game all season that the Thunder didn't hold a lead at any point of the first half.

Oklahoma City enters the All Star break with an NBA-best 43-12 record.  The Thunder holds a four-game lead on the Spurs for the top seed in the West.  Durant spoke to the importance of finishing the pre-break stretch with a win. 

"It gives us a good feeling going into the break," Durant said.  "We knew this team was gonna come out and play extremely hard. So we just wanted to get one on the road before we get a few days off."

And from the almost-impossible-to-believe-but-it's-true department, the Lakers made a little bit of negative history on Thursday.  The loss marked the Lakers' seventh straight home loss; the first seven-game home losing streak since the franchise arrived in Los Angeles in 1960.

The Thunder is 2-0 against the Lakers this season.  OKC hosts the Miami Heat on Thursday, Feb. 20 in its first game after the break.

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