Huge First Half Leads Thunder To Romp In Orlando

If Oklahoma City ends up making the playoffs this season (at the very least), it will be easy to point back to Friday night's win over Golden State as the turning point in a disjointed season.

Sunday night, the Thunder rode the momentum from Friday night's win to a dominating 127-99 win over Orlando.

The drama in this game didn't last very long. OKC went up 13-0 right out of the gate, scored 37 points in the first quarter, took at 30-point lead with seven minutes left in the second quarter and scored 79 points in the first half.

The Magic is no Golden State, but the Magic had just defeated Chicago and Houston in the past three games, scoring 121 and 120 points on those teams, respectively. Oklahoma City's offensive display on Sunday was impressive, no matter how good or bad Orlando is. The 79 points Oklahoma City scored in the first half was the most in a half this season, as well as the most in a half in the OKC era. The Thunder achieved that by shooting an incredible 73 percent from the field.

The Thunder ended the game shooting 58 percent from the floor.

Oklahoma City got contributions from all over the floor, with 10 different players shooting at least 50 percent from the field. Kevin Durant led the way with 21 points, 11 rebounds and eight assists. Russell Westbrook had 17 points and one ridiculous dunk in the third quarter that had the whole arena marveling.

Serge Ibaka had 16 points, including four 3-pointers. And speaking of 3-pointers, even Andre Roberson got in on the fun Sunday night, hitting 2-of-3 deep balls and finishing with 10 points. Dion Waiters had 16, Reggie Jackson had 13 and Kendrick Perkins had 11 and nine rebounds off the bench.

The Magic shot 40 percent from the field and was led by Victor Oladipo's 23 points. Elfrid Payton had 19 points and Nikola Vucevic had 16 points in addition to being added to Steven Adam's hit list in the third quarter. Vucevic was issued a technical foul for shoving Adams after the two players got tangled up going for a rebound.

The Thunder's domination of the game was very evident on the stat sheet, as OKC held a 54-33 edge on the boards and had 28 assists on 48 field goals.

The only blemish for the Thunder was 20 turnovers, which led to 26 Orlando points. 22 of those came in the second half and 19 of Orlando's 31 third quarter points came off Oklahoma City turnovers. However, it's pretty easy to be a little careless with the ball when you're up 34 points at halftime.

Oklahoma City is back at .500 for just the second time this season and with six road games left this month, Sunday night was a good time to get the squad's first road win since a win in San Antonio on Christmas Day.

The Thunder has momentum going in the right direction, but sustaining that momentum is always the most difficult thing to do. For the first time all season, the Thunder looks like the team it's supposed to be.