The Lakers came into their series against the Thunder aware that fouls and officiating would be a talking point. Before the series even started, head coach JJ Redick made sarcastic comments about how little OKC fouls.
There was no laughing at the final whistle of Thursday’s Game 2 loss, though. Following a night when LA felt they were repeatedly on the wrong end of whistles — or weren’t even receiving them in some cases — they let their frustrations be known, both on and off the court.
After the final
buzzer, multiple Lakers circled around official John Goble for an animated conversation.
Once in the back, they continued sounding off, led by Redick himself
“I sarcastically said the other day they were the most disruptive team without fouling,” Redick said. “I mean, they have a few guys that foul on every possession and all the good defenses do. [Shai Gilgeous-Alexander] gets like, I don’t even know, a touch foul, I guess, on a drive. There was a stretch where, four straight possessions, our guys got absolutely clobbered.”
“They’re hard enough to play. You’ve got to be able to just call it if they foul. And they do foul.”
The Lakers did well to manage their frustrations, not allowing it to boil over into their play. It was a notable accomplishment given how heated many of them were, none more so than Reaves. Following a sequence that ended with a Cason Wallace 3-pointer that forced a Lakers timeout, Reaves had to be pulled away from Goble.
Following the game, Reaves explained that his anger stemmed from a sequence preceding that in which he felt like Goble disrespected him.
“When we were doing the whole tip ball, they were switching spots,” Reaves said. “I wanted to get on the other side because they had a guy on the other side. We were just trying to keep an advantage. He turned around and just yelled in my face.
“I just thought it was disrespectful…But at the end of the day, we’re grown men and I just didn’t feel like he needed to yell in my face like that. I told him that. I wasn’t disrespectful. I told him if I did that to him first, I would have got a tech. I felt the only reason I didn’t get a tech was he knew he was in the wrong.”
Another subject of frustration centered on LeBron and the fouls not being called. Through two games this series, he’s shot just five free throws.
“LeBron has the worst whistle of any star player I’ve ever seen,” Redick said. “I’ve been with him two years now. The smaller guys, because they can be theatric, they typically draw more fouls. The bigger players that are built like LeBron, it’s hard for them. But he gets clobbered and he got clobbered again tonight a bunch.
“That’s not a new thing that’s specific to this crew or this series. He gets fouled a lot and it doesn’t happen. The guy gets hit on the head more than any player I’ve seen on drives and it rarely gets called.”
On Thursday, there were several questionable calls that left the Lakers upset. Early in the game, LeBron finished a layup through contact from Jaylin Williams that knocked him to the ground and left him limping briefly, but no foul was called.
In the second half, LeBron looked to have drawn a foul on a shot and converted the off-balance jumper for, again, what looked to be a clear and-one. Instead, the officials waved off the basket, calling the foul on the floor.
It all culminated in the frustrations boiling over at the final buzzer and in the press conferences. Still, as frustrated as the team was, Redick was clear that was not the reason they lost.
“We didn’t lose because of the refs,” Redick said. “That’s never the case. You don’t lose because of refs. You lose because the other team outplays you and Oklahoma City outplayed us.”
Fines are likely to come for the Lakers, both for their on-court actions and off-court comments. It won’t be the first time it happens this postseason, either.
Still, on a night with 45 fouls, a half-dozen reviews and a lot of questionable decisions, it’s understandable the Lakers walked away from this game feeling aggrieved.
You can follow Jacob on Twitter at @JacobRude or on Bluesky at @jacobrude.bsky.social.
