The Lakers-Thunder game took just over two hours to complete, but the LA was done competing far sooner than that.
Oklahoma City dominated en route to a 121-92 win over the Lakers. There was only one lead
change in the contest and the Thunder led by as many as 37 points.
With Oklahoma City running Los Angeles out of the gym quickly, it’s hard to pinpoint when it all went wrong. However, Austin Reaves did provide some insights postgame on when the game got away from the Lakers.
“I think early in the second quarter, I think they went on a 10-0 run and we couldn’t get a shot to fall,” Reaves said.“We were messing up the switches on the other end. JJ [Redick] said this morning that once you give this team a little sliver of whatever, they can just run away with the game and that’s what they did. That’s why they’re the champions. We’ll watch film and get better from it.”
What’s even more concerning about the Lakers’ second-quarter performance is that one can’t figure out exactly which run Reaves is referring to.
Is he talking about the early part of the second when OKC went on a 6-0 run? Or is he referring to the 8-0 run that the Thunder had from the 6:26 mark until there was 4:12 left in the half and Marcus Smart scored the team’s first field goal of the second quarter.
Yes, you read that right: the Lakers went the majority of the second quarter without making a single basket. Before Smart hit that 3-pointer, you had to go back to the closing seconds of the first quarter when Reaves converted on a layup to find a Lakers point that wasn’t a free throw.
By the time Smart hit that deep shot, LA already trailed by 14 and things only went worse from there. OKC scored twice as many points in the second quarter compared to LA and they never looked back, cruising to victory.
The Lakers have been a great shooting team this season, making 50.9% of their shots. That effectiveness was nowhere to be found in OKC. LA shot 40% and scored just 92 points, making it the first time this season that Los Angeles has failed to crack the century mark.
That’s not good enough to beat the defending champions, even when they are playing on the second night of a back-to-back.
The Lakers entered this five-game road trip undefeated away from home, but they’ve now lost two of their three games and need to win their last two against the Pelicans and Bucks if they want to finish this time away from Los Angeles with more victories than defeats.
To do that, they’ll have to play much sharper than they did against the Thunder and in their loss to the Hornets.
You can follow Edwin on Twitter at @ECreates88 or on Bluesky at @ecreates88.bsky.social.
