Luka Doncic was at his best in the Los Angeles Lakers’ dominant victory over the Oklahoma City Thunder. He led the way with 30 points, seven rebounds and six assists while knocking down five 3-pointers and setting up many others as the Lakers had one of their best performances of the season.
Doing so on the road against the Thunder, who have the best record in the NBA, and had only lost five games at home all year, made it even more impressive. But Luka noted that with the standings in the West being as close as they are, the Lakers had to get this win, via Spectrum SportsNet:
“Yeah, it’s very tough to play here. Very tough to win obviously. But I looked at the standings today and it’s crazy in the West, so we needed this game badly.”
Thanks to this win and losses by both the Denver Nuggets and Golden State Warriors, the Lakers now find themselves in prime position to lock down the 3-seed in the West. But, of course, the team can only focus on themselves and against the Thunder Doncic felt the Lakers did exactly what head coach JJ Redick asked and were physical and aggressive from the start:
“Just amazing. We said from the start, JJ said we need to be physical and we need to go out in this game and be aggressive. And that’s what we did. So that was our goal, and we shot pretty good. We got a lot of open looks so the game was flowing.”
What made Luka’s individual performance even more impressive was that it came against a Thunder defense that is the best in the league and led Defensive Player of the Year candidate Lu Dort. But as is the case with most great players, that matchup brings out the best in Doncic:
“I think it brings the competitive spirit out of me. It brings the best out of me. Going against Lu Dort is a tough job. He’s one of the best defenders in the NBA, so it brings me more motive to try and win the game.”
Doncic did his job, as did the rest of the Lakers, in handling everything the Thunder tried to throw at them and he feels the team is continuing to improve how they handle defenses and must continue building on this going forward:
“I think we’re at our best when they blitz. It’s obviously easy basketball, 4-on-3. I mean, obviously it’s not easy, but we just gotta work on that. Since I’ve been here, we’ve been getting better and better at that. So I think today, the ball was moving and we were getting a lot of open shots and that’s what we need to do moving forward.”
Obviously the Lakers aren’t going to be as scorching hot every night as they were on Sunday. But the energy and ball movement is something that should carry over every night and if it does, the Lakers will be a very tough team to beat in the playoffs.
JJ Redick says Lakers were connected on both ends of the floor vs. Thunder
Lakers coach JJ Redick, much like Luka Doncic, was very happy with the team’s performance in Oklahoma City and spoke about what went right for his team on Sunday.
Redick felt the Lakers were connected both offensively and defensively, praising Luka and the rest of the team for recognizing and properly attacking the different looks the Thunder threw at them, while also playing with high intensity and never letting up despite holding a big lead for most of the game.
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