Durant Shines Again As Thunder Crushes Heat In Miami

Kevin Durant and the Thunder sent the Heat a message on Wednesday night.

Wednesday, January 29th 2014, 9:47 pm

By: News 9

Durant Shines Again As Thunder Crushes Heat In Miami

All the King's horses and all the King's men, couldn't stop the Thunder from winning again.

Kevin Durant's 33 points, seven rebounds and five assists led the red-hot Thunder (37-10) to their ninth straight win Wednesday night, clobbering the Miami Heat 112-95 in South Beach.

Durant was the star as usual, scoring 30+ points for the 12th straight game, but he had plenty of help. Serge Ibaka scored 22 points and grabbed eight boards, and the Thunder bench was phenominal.

Derek Fisher gave Oklahoma City a huge lift, draining 5-7 3-pointers to finish with 15 points. Meanwhile, Jeremy Lamb played like a star, finishing with 18 points on 7-10 shooting and 4-6 from downtown. Including Perry Jones' 3-pointer, the Thunder bench shot a collective 10-12 from deep.

Despite the finish, things began disasterously for OKC. The Thunder held a 2-0 lead, but Miami exploded on an 18-0 run, seizing control and channeling bad memories for Thunder fans everywhere.3

The Heat extended that lead to 18 at 22-4, but Fisher's first 3-ball of the game helped settle things down for OKC.

From that point on, the Thunder outscored Miami 108-73 the rest of the night. Part of the turnaround should be credited to coach Scott Brooks, who tinkered with the lineup and found a comination of players that worked.

Brooks started Kendrick Perkins, but after 5 minutes of clearly ineffective play, benched the Thunder center for the rest of the game. Instead, Brooks gave the versatile Jones 30 minutes. The 22-year-old Baylor product made the most of his chance, playing excellent defense on LeBron James, Chris Bosh and an assortment of Heat bigs.

The Thunder shot 51.3 percent from the floor while Miami finished at 51.4 percent, but things were quite different from behind the arc.

OKC was on fire from deep, draining 16-27 from downtown, while Miami shot just 3-19.

Miami's point guards, Norris Cole and Mario Chalmers, combined for 49 minutes, four points, 11 assists, eight turnovers, and a -23 +/-.

James finished with 34 points to lead Miami, while Chris Bosh added 18. Dwyane Wade, who publicly fueded with Durant in the offseason with this message...

"Note to self. Make him respect your place in history ... again."

...finished with 15 points and two assists and four turnovers.

Durant, who infamously responded to Wade with "Show me, don't tweet me," severely outplayed the 32-year old shooting guard.

OKC snapped a six-game losing streak to the Heat, along with a five-game skid in Miami. The Thunder is back at it on Friday night in Brooklyn against the resurgent Nets.