They have long since proven themselves as an endlessly efforting Laker team that never believes they’re beaten.
They’re beaten.
With the sort of resounding resilience that had earlier carried them to playoff wins without their two leading scorers, these Lakers have shown they desperately do not want this season to be over.
It’s over.
The Oklahoma City Thunder overcame another valiant Lakers charge Thursday night to win their second game in two tries in the Western Conference semifinals at Paycom Center.
The Lakers played hard, played tough, played the Thunder from baseline to baseline, played strong enough to fly home with pride.
And still lost by 18.
The 125-107 Thunder victory gives the defending champions a two-games-to-none lead in a series that is scheduled for as many as seven games.
It’s not lasting anywhere near that long.
It’s over right here, right now, the Lakers having absorbed consecutive 18-point smackdowns by a team whose reigning MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander has barely shown up.
The Lakers may steal a game back at Crypto.com Arena this weekend, but that would be the only one, it being unthinkable that this mismatch will last more than five games.
“You’re starting to see some trends here,” said Laker coach JJ Redick.
The main trend is that the Thunder just have better players, and more of them, witness a game-changing third quarter Thursday in which they outscored the Lakers 36-22 despite the foul-plagued Gilgeous-Alexander playing less than two minutes.
Ten different Thunder players scored or rebounded in that quarter. The Lakers had as many turnovers as baskets — seven! — while surrendering 11 points off those mistakes and blowing a one-point halftime lead forever.
Have you even heard of Ajay Mitchell? You have now. He scored 20. How many casual NBA fans knew that Jared McCain played for Oklahoma City? They know now. He scored 18 while missing pnly one of five three-point attempts.
“We just got blitzed,” said Redick, and this shorthanded team has proven they simply don’t have enough blockers to slow that blitz.
Overall the Lakers committed 21 more turnovers, giving up 26 points off the mistakes while paying dearly for every errant dribble or misfired pass against the swarming Thunder defenders.
Austin Reaves bounced back from his disastrous Game 1 with 31 points and LeBron James was LeBron with 23 points and Rui Hachimura continued his scorching shooting with 16.
But it wasn’t close enough. It wasn’t close to being close enough, and please, stop whining that the referees failed to call enough fouls on the aggressive Thunder. Their opponents always whine about that, and Reaves even stayed on the court after Thursday’s final buzzer to vent to the referees about that, but just … don’t.
The Lakers only shot five fewer free throws, and Gilgeous-Alexander was hit with his third foul shortly after halftime, and, again, they lost by three touchdowns.
“We didn’t lose because of the refs … Oklahoma City outplayed us,” said Redick.
Still, Redick responded to the fact that, while Gilgeous-Alexander has shot 12 free throws this series, James has shot only five.
“The smaller guys, because they can be theatric, they typically draw more fouls and the bigger players that are built like LeBron, it’s hard for them,” said Redick. ”He gets clobbered. He got clobbered again tonight a bunch. And that’s not like a new thing. That’s not 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 rarely gets called.”
They once said the same thing about Shaquille O’Neal, and he won three consecutive championships here so, no, let’s pass on the rhetoric and accept the reality.
This season is over, and the sooner Lakers fans accept the inevitability while applauding the effort.
This series actually ended on the day off between Games 1 and 2, with the injured Luka Doncic formally acknowledging that doctors have told him recovery from his strained left hamstring would take eight weeks. And he’s only been out five weeks.
Do the math. He’s not coming back in this series, nor should he. His long-term health isn’t worth risking to save a completely lost cause.
“It’s a tough one for me because I came back from injuries before too soon, and it wasn’t the best result,” Doncic said Wednesday.
Without him against Oklahoma City, it was always going to be the worst result, and so it has been.
Hopeless but hearty, the Lakers forged ahead Thursday, and still clung to a one-point lead midway through the third quarter when the rickety wheels came completely off.
James lost the ball twice. Marcus Smart, who missed nine of 13 shots, threw up a brick. Deandre Ayton, who missed seven of eight shots, had a couple of bad misses. And McCain, the Thunder‘s backup guard, was unstoppable, sinking two big treys in the quarter as Oklahoma City rolled to a 13-point lead entering the final period.
The Lakers momentarily came roaring back in the fourth quarter behind a James layup and three-pointer, going on a 7-0 run to pull within four points midway through the quarter. But Chet Holmgren and Cason Wallace hit three-pointers while Smart was fumbling the ball and James and Hachimura were missing shots, while Oklahoma City’s 8-0 run gave them another 13-point lead that was never again challenged.
Afterward, James spoke with as much optimism as he could muster.
“We played well in spurts … we had a good game plan,” he said. “We tried to execute it as close to 48 minutes as possible, but it just didn’t get done.”
Against the world champions, spurts don’t get it done, and less than 48 minutes doesn’t get it done.
The Lakers have occasionally been tantalizingly close, but there’s a clear absence here of any cigar, and no chance of one walking through that door.
It was fun while it lasted, and it lasted longer than most would have imagined.
But it’s over.
The post Turn out the lights on the Lakers; after second loss to Oklahoma City, it’s over appeared first on Los Angeles Times.
