By Joe Hawkes-Beamon
Contributor

photo credit The Sporting News: Oklahoma City Thunder’s Kevin Durant (35) hand looks blinding for Golden State’s Stephen Curry in the third defeat of the Warriors at OKC on Tuesday night

Oklahoma City — Don’t look now but the Golden State Warriors are in some serious trouble for the first time in two years.

Russell Westbrook recorded his third career triple double, racking up 36 points, 11 rebounds and 11 assists, while fellow superstar Kevin Durant dropped 26 points and 11 rebounds to lead the Oklahoma City Thunder to a 118-94 victory Tuesday night and a commanding 3-1 lead in the best-of-7 Western Conference finals.

The loss puts the defending NBA champions on the brink of elimination. It also marked the first time that this season that Golden State has loss back-to-back games this season.

Klay Thompson scored 19 of his team-leading 26 points in the third quarter while dealing with foul trouble, while Stephen Curry scored 19 points but struggled tremendously from the floor finishing 6-for-20 from the floor.

The two-time league MVP missed wide open shots for the majority of the game while exerting so much energy chasing Westbrook for most of the night.

Westbrook was an instant fastbreak starter, engineering a Thunder squad that outscored Golden State 48-38 in the paint.

The Thunder, who were the league’s top rebounding team at 48.6 rebounds per game during the regular season, dominated the boards 56 to 40. For the series, OKC has out-rebounded Golden State by averaging 49 to 41 rebounds per game.

In addition to Westbrook and Durant, OKC finished with five players in double figures (Serge Ibaka and Andre Roberson each scored 17 points, Steven Adams scored 11 points, and Dion Waiters chipped in with 10 points off the bench.)

Roberson, who 17 points were a career-high, also finished with 12 rebounds.

During the playoffs, the Thunder are 7-0 when they have five or more players finish in double figures.

“The Thunder are outplaying us right now,” said Warriors head coach Steve Kerr. “We have to come up with answers.”

Golden State needs to come up with some answers fast heading back to Oakland for a do-or-die Game 5 Thursday night in what will be  raucous Oracle Arena crowd.

Draymond Green had a game to forget tonight.

Green, who avoided suspension from the league after kicking Adams in the groin during Game 3, finished with just six points and 11 rebounds, but shot 1-for-7 from the floor.

“I bring the energy for this team and I haven’t been bringing that energy,” Green said post game. “We just didn’t take care of the ball well tonight. I have to bring more energy for this team to win.”

The Warriors had 13 of their 21 turnovers in the first half. Green and Curry each had six turnovers.

Harrison Barnes finished with 11 points for Golden State, who now have a larger mountain to climb if they are going to reach the NBA Finals for the second straight year.

According to the Elias Sports Bureau, teams that trail 3-1 in a best-of-7 series are just 9-223.

But the focus wasn’t just on Curry’s disappearing act (2-for-10 on 3s), or Thompson racking off 19 straight points in the third quarter that pulled Golden State within eight points after being down as much as 25 points, but on the tentative play by Green.

“This is the first time in my life I didn’t respond to critics,” said Green.

The Thunder have smacked the NBA champions in the mouth the last two games, hammering the Warriors by an average of 26.5 points per game in the two win at Oklahoma City.

Oklahoma City rung up 72 points in the first half for the second straight game on Golden State this postseason, joining the 1987 Showtime Lakers as the only team to score 72 points in the first half in back-to-back games in the playoffs.

For Golden State, the next 48 hours are going to be the most important 48 hours that the team has faced during the Steve Kerr era.

The team that won a regular season-best 73 games during the regular season, has looked awful the last two games of the Western Conference finals with the bad shot selections, turnovers, and poor rebounding.

But if winning championships were easy then everyone would be doing it, right?

The Warriors have face adversity all season, but the Thunder have made life extremely difficult for Golden State in this series.

Kerr and the coaching staff has to find answers for a beat up Warriors team that are on the ropes.