The Cheat SheetBy Jesse Kramer on

Wednesday got wild. Oklahoma City and Golden State squared off once again, and the biggest head-to-head battle wound up being between Russell Westbrook and Zaza Pachulia. There were a handful of last-second thrillers across multiple sports, and finally finally finally that ridiculously bad Los Angeles Chargers logo is buried.

We’ve got all that and much more in this Thursday’s Cheat Sheet, so let’s get started.

Durant scores season-high 40 as Warriors beat Thunder; Russ vows for revenge on Zaza

Los Angeles Clippers v Golden State Warriors

It was cute when the Thunder were tied with the Warriors at halftime. Then Golden State broke open a 23-point lead in the second half and went on to win 121-100. Kevin Durant dropped a season-high 40 points against his former team while Russell Westbrook went for yet another triple-double with 27 points, 15 rebounds and 13 assists. (And 10 turnovers — quadruple-double?)

But the real battle became Westbrook vs. Zaza Pachulia when the big fella committed a nasty flagrant foul and stood over Westbrook.

“He hit me kinda hard,” Westbrook said after the game. “I’m gonna get his ass back. Straight up.”

Westbrook was involved in a few of the other most memorable plays of the evening, including the most obvious travel of all time.

At least he owned it.

He made up for that play with a vicious dunk straight down the lane in the third quarter.

Meanwhile, Durant’s 40 points came on 13-of-16 shooting, which made him the first player with such a stat line since Paul Pierce more than four years ago, according to ESPN Stats & Info.

A thrilling night of college basketball

Screen Shot 2017-01-19 at 1.46.04 AM

—Of 39 games last night, 17 were decided by five points or less. Six went to overtime, and six were decided on the final shot.

James Blackmon Jr. got the buzzer-beater party started as Indiana survived at Penn State, despite an apparently serious injury to OG Aunoby.

Then IUPUI guard Darell Combs unleashed a nasty crossover to knock off South Dakota State, although only 981 people were there to see it.

Then Jordan Woodard went coast-to-coast as Oklahoma stunned West Virginia. (I love the Mountaineers, but they quietly have three not-so-good losses this year — Temple on a neutral site, Texas Tech on the road, and now this at home.)

Next, Antwoine Anderson decided the Battle of the Rams with a buzzer-beater as Fordham upset VCU and a put a dent in those Rams’ NCAA tourney hopes.

The fun didn’t stop there. Glynn Watson slipped on defense allowing Marc Loving to get wide open for an Ohio State game-winner at Nebraska.

The night ended out in Hawaii, where the Rainbow Warriors knocked off Cal State Northridge in overtime on Leland Green’s three with 0.9 seconds left.

College basketball wasn’t the only sport with a game-winner

Connor McDavid broke loose for a breakaway goal with 2.6 seconds left to give the Oilers a win over the Panthers.

McDavid also reached 100 career points in the same game.

Jeff Bagwell, Tim Raines, and Ivan Rodriguez headed to Cooperstown

bbhof17

Those are your 2017 inductees to the baseball hall of fame. Bagwell led the group with 86.2 percent of the vote while Raines was close behind at 86 percent and Pudge got 76 percent to be the only first-ballot player this year.

Rodriguez had an emotional reaction to the news.

So did CBS/Sports Illustrated writer Jonah Keri, who has been a big advocate for Raines’ induction.

The big snubs were Trevor Hoffman (74%) and Vladimir Guerrero (71.7%) while a handful of steroid users were further down the list. Roger Clemens (54.1%) and Barry Bonds (53.8%) were the most notable of the group, each rising several percentage points from last season.

“So much Jackie Chan in Seth Allen.” — Jon Rothstein, probably

Next time, let’s see him grab a few teammates and try this:

View post on imgur.com

Quick Hits

—Joel Embiid continued to become America’s most lovable star as he encouraged the 76ers home crowd to chant “Trust The Process!” while he shot free throws during Wednesday’s win over the Raptors.

—Remember that laughable Chargers logo? Well, memories are all we have now.

—Westbrook vs. Durant wasn’t the night’s only intriguing NBA matchup of the night. James Harden and Giannis Antetokounmpo also went head-to-head, and The Beard got the better of The Greek Freak in this battle of unconventional point guards. Not to say Antetokounmpo didn’t play well — Harden had 38 points, 6 rebounds and 8 assists to his 32 points, 11 boards and 6 dimes.

—Arizona star Allonzo Trier has not played this season, and we now know his absence is the result of a positive PED test, per ESPN.

—”The Discovery,” a new Netflix sci-fi flick, looks awesome. Nothing better than Roy Orbison’s voice to set a haunting tone.

—You’ve probably heard of Markelle Fultz as that guy you’ve never heard of. The possible No. 1 pick is  playing essentially in obscurity this year at Washington, and he went bonkers once again with 37 points, 8 assists, 5 rebounds, 3 steals and 3 blocks as Washington defeated Colorado in overtime.

—Ben Simmons, last year’s No. 1 pick who also played in obscurity at LSU, could make his debut for the Sixers shortly after the all-star break, according to reports.

—Larry David’s cameo in the Last Week Tonight With John Oliver season four promo made me hyperventilate for a hot sec. The tongue-in-cheek ad provided quite a few laughs.

—Considering I knew nothing about this until now, I’m really excited for CBS Sports’ new documentary on 14 African-American Wyoming football players who protested against racial injustices in 1969.

—There’s a new shop in Los Angeles that only sells VHS copies of “Jerry Maguire.” They’ve got 14,000 copies in stock in English, Spanish and French. “¡Muestrame el dinero!”

—The one thing I never realized I needed so badly.

One last moment of procrastination

This is kind of how we all feel in the middle of the winter. Let’s all be more like the dog in the background just chilling and embracing the wind.

About Jesse Kramer

Jesse is a writer and editor for The Comeback. He has also worked for SI.com and runs The Catch and Shoot, a college basketball website based in Chicago. He is a graduate of the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. Follow Jesse on Twitter @Jesse_Kramer.

View all posts by Jesse Kramer