On March 22, Beijing time, the NBA regular season continued, and the Lakers defeated the Cavaliers 131-120 away. In this game, Westbrook scored 20 points, 4 rebounds and 11 assists on 7-of-14 shooting, a net win of 23 points on the court, which was the highest in the game.
After the game, Lakers star "Magic" Johnson praised Westbrook on social media, saying, "In the past three games, Westbrook has played his best game as a Lakers player!" ”
The words of "Magician" have also been recognized by many Lakers fans, because in the last 3 games, Westbrook's performance has indeed improved very significantly. He averaged 21.3 points, 8 rebounds and 9.7 assists per game, shooting 53.7% from the field and shooting 50% from three-point range. For comparison, this season his regular season stats are 18 points, 7.5 rebounds and 7.1 assists, shooting 43.6 percent from the field and just 29.1 percent from three-point range.
Finding his shooting confidence is an important reason why Westbrook can recover strongly. Westbrook has been questioned by the outside world, and the most important reason is that his shooting ability is unstable. Especially against the Timberwolves, Beverley was completely empty, and Towns made controversial moves to taunt, allowing Westbrook to fall into the lowest point of his life.
However, Westbrook's skills may be picked up by many people, but his mentality of winning is basically no one will question. Westbrook didn't give in to the ridicule of the outside world, especially against the Raptors, who made a final-minute steal and then hit a three-pointer.
This goal can be said to have directly helped Westbrook to achieve a bottoming out, and it is also after this game that the naked eye can see the change in Westbrook's mentality, and the self-confident Westbrook in the past is back.
However, although Westbrook's state has picked up, the situation of the Lakers is still not optimistic. They are still 4.5 wins away from the 8th-place Clippers in the West and only three wins ahead of the 11th-place Spurs. In the closing stages, the Lakers' schedule is still very difficult, and to achieve a better ranking, Westbrook needs to continue to maintain this state.