Los Angeles Lakers: 4 Lessons in an embarrassing OT win over OKC

On Saturday, the Los Angeles Lakers survived a double-overtime marathon against the Pistons. They followed that up with an embarrassing overtime win over an Oklahoma City Thunder team with only eight players!

Lake Show Life breaks down what else happened in Lake Show Life Lessons! The only Los Angeles Lakers extended post-game report with in-depth analysis and highlights.

Now stop us if you’ve heard this story last weekend. You know the one that’s about a World Champion Lakers team being pushed to the limit by one of the worst teams in the NBA whose only goal is to hear Adam Silver say…

With the first pick of the NBA draft…

The Los Angeles Lakers inconvenienced themselves, their fanbase, the beat writers, Lakers websites and NBA casuals who wanted to focus on the Super Bowl with a two overtime odyssey against the Detroit Pistons. Even though Detroit should have been defeated handily, there were at least some reasons that could be explained.

• Jerami Grant is a budding star who has qualities that give the Lakers matchup problems.
• Josh Jackson shot the greatest game of his NBA life in one half. He was in a zone from the 3 point stripe and beyond. Sometimes it happens.
• Delon Wright will probably never again shoot 8-9 from the field for 22 points while dishing out 10 assists. No hate here, just playing the options for Las Vegas. 

The game against Oklahoma City Thunder? Nope, can’t explain this one away. This was ridiculous

The Lakers played without the services of Anthony Davis and Alex Caruso on Monday and it showed for about 45 minutes of this game. It took an 8-0 run in the fourth quarter to get to overtime that should have never been played. Finally, Los Angeles ran away to a 119-112 victory.

While the Lakers casuals will try to break the internet showing plays like this.

Real Lakers fans that see the big picture are probably upset and they should be. This game was embarrassing. The Thunder had only eight players dress for the game with a rookie coach. No disrespect to the other side but this game should have been a carbon copy of the blowout in Oklahoma City.

Instead, the Lakers were shooting worse than the Thunder going into the 4th quarter and waited until the final three minutes of regulation before the alarm clock went off. Even then Kentavious Caldwell-Pope hit the snooze button with a stupid foul behind the 3 point line that bailed the Thunder out with three free throws to go to overtime.

The Lake Show slipped by the Thunder the same way they have with the other bad teams they’ve played this season with difficulty…HUGE RUNS!

• The Lakers had a furious 8-0 run before KCP’s “incident”.
• The Lake Show outscored OKC 34-26 in the fourth quarter overall.
• In overtime, LeBron James jumped in the post and ran the offense to perfection spearheading an efficient 9-2 run to make sure there wasn’t a repeat of Saturday night.

As bad as the Lakers played against an inferior opponent, the storyline for the next 48 hours will be the overworking of the two superstars especially LeBron James.

Holding out Anthony Davis was wise because Achilles injuries are tricky and the Los Angeles Lakers cannot lose him under any circumstances.

But the Los Angeles Lakers struggled mightily without him. Plus the void should not have to be filled entirely by LeBron James. While LeBron shot 11-22 from the field, the rest of the team shot 33-73 from the field. This just in to Lake Show Life, that ain’t good.

The minutes are starting to pile up on LeBron James. Frank Vogel had this to say via Harrison Faigen of Silver Screen and Roll on LeBron’s minutes.

"“I mean, we don’t want to go to overtime when we don’t have to, but obviously he’s going to want to be in there then and we definitely want to be responsible with his minutes.”"

We’ll get to the breakdown of those minutes shortly, but no one’s buying the level of “responsibility” at this moment.

To the new Los Angeles Lakers fans that are checking us out for the first time, welcome to Lake Show Life Lessons. Our extended post-game report with video analysis will cover the progress for the Los Angeles Lakers the entire season!

 Over the next several pages we will provide highlights of certain players and coaches. Afterward, the comment section is loaded with knowledgeable fans adding their basketball knowledge. We usually start with the stars.

 Let’s get to Lesson One to find out who!