It seems like just yesterday when I was watching Westbrook play, while mentioning to a friend how he'd never missed a game at any level: grade school, college, pro. It was always too good to continue being true, but somehow I imagined him going his entire career like that.

All of that went up in smoke with a torn meniscus. So many things had to go wrong in order for this to happen. For one thing, Patrick Beverley had to be on the court.


Jeremy Lin had hurt himself during warmups and Beverley ended up playing over 40 minutes in the game. Had it not been for Lin's freak injury, Westbrook would likely be preparing for game 3 tonight; instead, he's done for the season.

Patrick Beverley may score under half a dozen points a game and not even average 20 minutes, but he's going to cast as large a shadow as anyone over this postseason. There will always be the question of what might have been with this year's Thunder team.

A return to the Finals is now unlikely: a championship... all but impossible. It's becoming abundantly clear that there is only one significant team out West. Every day the list of teams to challenge the Nazgul grows smaller. This is the greatest blow yet.

Or maybe this is just the year when the Clippers win it all. We'll know soon enough...