West Notes: Thunder, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Grizzlies, Clippers

Thunder

All-Star guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander said he has a bond with Clipper guard Russell Westbrook, a former Thunder great in his own right.

“He’s one of the best competitors to ever play the game,” Gilgeous-Alexander said, via Brandon Rahbar of Daily Thunder. “He is a really good guy off the court. He’s a guy I’m cool with, we’re friends. He’s just a really good guy.” 

• Coach Mark Daigneault said the Thunder are “open-minded” on allowing Gilgeous-Alexander to play both games of back-to-backs moving forward, via Rylan Stiles of Fansided.

Grizzlies

Celtics legend Paul Pierce said he tweeted about the case involving Grizzlies star guard Ja Morant because he was trying to offer perspective.

“The thing was, I didn’t want people to make an early judgment,” Pierce told Steve Bulpett of Heavy Sports. “I think that’s a mistake we make in the social media era. We see things, and then it’s just early judgment. We’re quick to judge instead of let’s find out what’s really going on first. And that’s something I had to learn. I don’t like to see things and then react. I like to see things and just let it play out. Let me see what that really was. Like, I didn’t know if that was a lighter in his hand. You know, them gun lighters? I didn’t know.”

• Morant’s return has “included a mix of contrition and defiance,” opined Tania Ganguli of the New York Times.

Clippers

Coach Tyronn Lue described the news involving the knee injury suffered by forward Paul George as a “best-case scenario.” George is expected to miss the rest of the regular season and perhaps a playoff series. But it’s not as drastic as it could’ve been.

“He’s a little disappointed, as expected,” Lue said, via Sam Quinn of CBS Sports. “But I think we got the best-case scenario as far as what we thought it could be. And so, being reevaluated in two, three weeks is something that we are looking forward to.”

• In case you missed it, Jake Fischer of Yahoo Sports speculated that Lue could end up leaving the Clippers at the end of the season. You can check out that full post here.