The Los Angeles Lakers suffered their fourth loss in five games on Friday night, falling to the Oklahoma City Thunder 101-93. The Lakers held tough with the Western Conference’s No. 1 seed for most of the game, but the Thunder pulled away at the end. It was a poor performance for both LeBron James and Anthony Davis, who both once again failed to cross the 20-point threshold.
But the real difference-maker in the game for the Thunder was offensive rebounds and points off turnovers. Oklahoma City pulled in 15 offensive rebounds compared to the Lakers’ eight. That is seven extra possessions won by the Thunder that L.A. did not get. Similarly, the Lakers turned the ball over 17 times compared to 10. OKC scored 20 points off of those turnovers while the Lakers only scored five.
It’s little things that often spell the difference between wins and losses for the elite teams in the league, and LeBron knows that must be improved upon quickly.
“Well, I mean, when you’re shading and helping a lot, especially against Shai [Gilgeous-Alexander] and J Dub, they have a numbers game on offensive rebounding, but we got to do a better job of trying to clean glass and do a much better job of not turning the ball over as much,” James said.
Despite the losing effort, LeBron thinks the Lakers actually have been playing better on the defensive end.
“Every game has its own challenges and game plan for each game depending on personnel. Defensively, we’ve been really good the last couple of games,” he added.
A 101-93 final score where both teams shot very poorly from the field shows the type of physical and aggressive game it was, and that’s exactly what LeBron wants to see.
“I like when the game is played that way. I wish it was more regular-season games allowed to play that way.”
Much of the loss comes down to the fact that the Thunder are an extremely good basketball team who are also missing two of their most important pieces.
“Yeah, I think they’re taking the jump, but they are also missing a big piece too with Chet [Holmgren] being out, so AC being out as well, so they’ll make another jump. But really good team. Well coached,” James said of Oklahoma City.
The Lakers know they have some improvements they need to make, and quickly. Otherwise, they’ll fall behind in a difficult and crowded Western Conference and not be able to catch back up.
JJ Redick pleased with Lakers’ defense
One of the few bright sides to the game is that the Lakers were able to limit the Thunder to just 101 points. Afterwards, head coach JJ Redick proclaimed that the team is playing some of their best defense of the 2024-25 season.
“I think the biggest takeaway is we have a lot to build on defensively over the last two games. That is the most connected our team has been on that end of the floor since the first game of the season,” Redick said.
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