The Los Angeles Lakers are now down two games to none against the Oklahoma City Thunder in the Western Conference Semifinals. LeBron James and the purple and gold have actually played far better than many anticipated, giving the Thunder two great fights with a quality game plan on the road. But it hasn’t mattered toward the final result.
L.A. has lost both games of the series by 18 points, even with holding a lead late in the third quarter in Game 2. The gap between the two teams is simply too vast, especially with Luka Doncic not in the lineup. James felt that his team played well in Game 2, but weren’t able to put together a complete performance.
“We played well in spurts,” James said. “I thought we had some pretty good minutes obviously until [the third quarter]. We were able to take a five-point lead in the third quarter and then they made a run, obviously. That fourth quarter, they kept scoring. They were really good exploiting matchups and things of that nature. But we had a really good game plan and tried to execute that as close to 48 minutes and just didn’t get it done.”
Turnovers were a big area of focus for L.A. heading into the series. They have been a high turnover team with or without Doncic, and the Thunder punish teams for turning it over. Through two games, the Lakers have 39 turnovers leading to 46 Thunder points. But even that isn’t a huge area of concern for James in game context.
“I don’t know. We’ve had opportunities,” he said. “I think offensively, we’ve had some really good looks. Some of them haven’t gone down. We’ve gotten into the paint. Yeah, we’ve had some turnovers, but today there wasn’t that many careless turnovers. Some of them were being aggressive, and we’re OK with that.”
The series now shifts back to Los Angeles, where James wants the Lakers to focused on second-chance opportunities for Oklahoma City.
“I think tonight we did a good job with our first defense,” James said. “But we gotta clean glass and do a better job with that. We let them get some offensive rebounds, get to the free throw line, get some putbacks. Versus 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 getting better at that. We gotta do a good job of hitting and not allowing them to get second-chance points.”
It’s not that the Thunder grab a significant amount of offensive rebounds — nine in each game so far — but rather, how effective they are in converting those to second-chance points.
“Yeah, they can be (deflating). It depends at what point in the game it happens. But they can be.”
The Lakers are not completely out of this series yet, as 2-0 comebacks are a relatively common occurrence in the NBA playoffs. However, L.A. must play nearly perfect basketball without their star player to make it happen.
The focus, according to James, starts with second-chance points but remains squarely on turnovers and playing complete games.
Luka Doncic praises Lakers teammates for stepping up
Doncic showed great pride in his group for the way they’ve played in his absence prior to Game 2 of the Thunder series.
“Everything. Everybody helped us out,” Doncic told reporters in Oklahoma City. “We proved that we can play. Everybody stepped up, it’s truly amazing to see. So hopefully they continue that.”
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