lahoma City’s Russell Westbrook and Houston’s James Harden for that trophy will be decided before the Thunder-Rockets series starts. As always with the NBA, there are some teams that are essentially eliminated before opening tip, and. The Penguins defeated the Blue Jackets 3-1 to stake a one-game-to-none lead in the first-round best-of-seven series. Westbrook not only plays at a high intensity but figures into a very high percentage of the Thunder’s possessions, something analytics experts calls usage rate.