NBA, Oklahoma City Thunders vs Los Angeles Lakers: Some Spicy shooting form was seen from the Lakers which gave them a 19 points lead. However, Thunders climbed their way back in the fourth quarter and took the game in the final minute.
It is the second time that Thunders have thundered down on Lakers, first win against the Lakers saw them covering 26 points deficit, winning by 107-104 in the staples center. They have won two games both against the Lakers.
As seen last week in Oklahoma, the Lakers jumped out to lead in the first half. However, the pattern continues with the second half being the opponents’. As a result, the Lakers’ big leads early in games have only served as fuel for the frustration of fans.
“The NBA game is a long game,” said head coach Frank Vogel after Thursday’s loss. “Early leads don’t really mean anything in the modern NBA. You have to keep playing.”
The Lakers through the opening nine games this season didn’t have the ability to play a full 48 minutes. In the last seven games, the Lakers have led by double digits in five of them.
In two other games — against Memphis and Cleveland — the Lakers trailed in the fourth quarter only to barely scrape by for a victory. The fifth game was their Halloween win over the Rockets, where their 28-point lead was trimmed to 10 points by the final buzzer.
For the Lakers, Anthony Davis led the scoring in Lebron James’s absence with 29 points and 18 rebounds. He was brilliantly supported by Russell Westbrook with 27 points, 5 dishes, and collecting 6 boards.
They were however challenged by a team effort with 6 players in the double-digits. Leading the charge was Shai Gilgeous-Alexander scoring 28 points, assisting 6 times while gathering 3 rebounds.
The man with the golden touch right now, Carmelo Anthony extends his form scoring fearless collecting 21 points. The issue is being outplayed in the fourth quarter. Especially in the absence of Lebron James, it is a nightmare to stop the opponent while they themselves struggle to score.
Anthony Davis: “That’s kind of been our M.O. since I’ve been here,” Davis said. “We are fine building leads, 10, 20, 30-point leads, but it’s how you play with them, and we’ve struggled to do that. A lot last year, and even this year, especially with this team (the Thunder). I think we were up 19 and then they came back and win the game. The same thing happened up there.
“But even against Cleveland and Houston, we did the same thing. We won those games, but we’ve got to do a better job of being able to score the basketball (and) to get stops. Teams are going to make runs, it’s a game of runs, but we’ve got to do a better job of playing with a lead, and continuing to play the right way.”
Both the teams were identical statistically. Nothing much to separate the two. However, the Lakers are bad to defend the paint and it is a pattern throughout this season. This was not the case for the last two seasons but this time around it’s different.
The alerting stat was just that OKC outscored Lakers 35-24 in the fourth quarter. That alone shows the situation the Lakers are in. Injury is also a problem for them with Lebron James sitting out this match and Davis with a thumb sprain could miss the next. Overall, a great game for OKC and a deserved one too.
The LAL will be against Melo’s former team, Portland Trail Blazers. While the OKC Thunders will battle against SAS. Stay tuned for more such information regarding sports.
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