The game of basketball can be complex. But often, its solutions can be simple. For the Lakers, there are two things they consistently haven’t been able to do this postseason: grab rebounds and control the basketball.
Against Houston in the first round, they eventually won the battle of the boards as the series progressed, but now in the second round, the Thunder are winning in this department.
Across two games, OKC has outrebounded Los Angeles 76-71. Turnovers have been even more concerning. The Lakers
lead the playoffs in turnovers, averaging 18.1 per game. In their Game 2 loss, the Lakers had 21 turnovers, and the Thunder scored 26 points off them.
“You can start seeing some trends here,” Lakers head coach JJ Redick said postgame. “We probably need to go back to the two keys we had against Houston which is take care of the ball and box out. It’s not on a high volume, but they’ve killed us in both games. Every time they’ve gotten an offensive rebound, they’ve scored.”
If you give the Thunder additional opportunities, they will make you pay. OKC leads the NBA in 2nd chance points, averaging 18 per game in the playoffs. Against the Lakers, that number has increased to 19. With LA struggling to take care of the ball and unable to retain possession on misses, it’s no surprise they are down 2-0 in this series.
“I think tonight, we did a good job with our first defense, but we have to clean glass,” LeBron James said. “We have to do a better job. We let Chet get some offensive rebounds and some putbacks, either get to the free throw line or some putbacks. [Against] a team like that, you can’t give up second-chance points. We did a great job in the Houston series as the series went on of being better at that. We got to do a better job of hitting and not allowing them to get second-chance points. When you’re able to hold a team like that to a first stop, I think we can get better at that.”
Before this series started, LeBron mentioned a need to take care of the details. In Game 1, the Lakers all agreed that it didn’t happen. Now, after Game 2, the chatter after the loss is more of the same.
So far, the Lakers haven’t been able to execute on all phases of a game for four quarters. The reason is a combination of the Lakers not taking care of things and the Thunder making that happen. This is a tough matchup for the Lakers. OKC is the favorite to win it all and hasn’t shown any cracks in its armor.
It’s up to the Lakers to create them, and that starts with controlling what they can control. In Game 3, they need to grab those boards and be smarter with the basketball. If not, they’ll be one step closer to elimination.
You can follow Edwin on Twitter at @ECreates88 or on Bluesky at @ecreates88.bsky.social.
