After coming back from an injury, Lauri Markkanen had an strong outing beating up the Oklahoma City Thunder with his game winner to take home the victory, 114-112 on Friday night.

Game Recap

At the start of the game, Steven Adams was outstanding having some hot hands scoring the first 12 points for Oklahoma City as he dominates in the painted area getting offensive rebounds and draining his hook shots. Chicago answered Adams' buckets with their outside shooting and some inside scoring from Lauri Markkanen. The Bulls got a little momentum in the first period and took a 9 point lead but OKC was able to cut the deficit to 6 points at the end of the first quarter.

Oklahoma City got some momentum in the second period but Lauri Markkanen's terrific showing is giving the Thunder a hard time getting back to the game and cutting the deficit. Markkanen continues to drain his three-pointers. He even made a four-point play and the Thunder couldn't get the lead back in the first half.

Thunder got their rhythm in the third period with their nice ball movements to find the open man. Westbrook also did nightly work dishing pretty assists for his team mates' buckets. George also shows up in the third and put some scoring and some nice defense. Thunder took the lead in the third quarter.

In the Final period, the game was close and both teams did a pretty well job containing each other and getting baskets against each other. Jabari Parker had a nice game and I like his aggressiveness and the way he pushed the ball and drive strong to the rim. It was intense in the last minutes of the game. There are several lead changes and ties. The Bulls took a 2 point lead with Holiday's three pointer with 22 seconds left then Russell Westbrook immediately blow by defender and drive to the basket for a layup to tie the game at 112. In the last seconds, Lauri Markkanen drive to the basket with Paul George defending him then he spins down the lane and get the layup to take the victory, 114-112.

Thoughts

I saw some improvements from Jabari Parker. I like his aggressiveness. I think he'll thrive in Chicago and be the player we all expected him to be when he was drafted. He's building some confidence inn Chicago and it's nice to see him confident and aggressive every night.

Who says Russell Westbrook makes his team mates worst? Well, I'll just leave it as simple as this. Steven Adams and Paul George is having a hell of a season and they are averaging career highs in almost all of their stat lines, points, rebounds, blocks, assists and steals. PG13 is even in the MVP conversation.

Stats

Lauri Markkanen - 24 pts, 7 reb, 2 ast, 3 stl, 1 blk
Zach Lavine - 25 pts, 4 reb, 7 ast, 2 stl
Jabari Parker - 16 pts, 7 reb, 4 ast, 1 stl
Russell Westbrook - 24 pts, 17 reb, 13 ast, 4 stl
Steven Adams - 21 pts, 10 reb, 2 stl, 1 blk
Paul George - 19 pts, 5 reb, 7 ast, 4 stl
Dennis Schroeder - 19 pts, 5 reb, 3 ast