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Did Russell Westbrook’s dancing actually cause the Thunder to lose? You can also check out a video that Villanueva posted on his blog which discusses the incident that went viral. There was also Cameron Payne, rookie out of Murray State, who was the other guy dancing with Westbrook along with rookie Justin Anderson of the Mavericks who didn’t approve of the dancing.
The dancing all seemed like fun and games early in the season and it was something different for the fans to see. In a playoff game after just getting beat by 38, the Mavs were having none of it. This seemed to fuel to Mavs, who were depleted in depth due to injury, to give it everything and pull out the victory. However, the Mavs did have some help as Kevin Durant missed 26 shots, tying Michael Jordan for the most missed shots in a playoffs. Russell Westbrook, the instigator, didn’t help his cause missing 14 of the shots he took. The Mavs were in no sense lucky as Dirk Nowitzki tallied 17 points to go along with Raymond Felton’s double double of 21 points and 11 rebounds.
In the end, after getting in between Westbrook’s dancing, Villanueva didn’t affect the game at all as he didn’t play a single minute. But his actions seemed to have fueled the team to avenge the 38 point lose and get the narrow victory over a very talented Thunder team. The Mavericks got the last laugh in this game and take the series back to Dallas all tied up 1-1.
