The bad from the Los Angeles Lakers’ win:
Pick a cliche’: The Lakers totally took their foot off the glass…Fell asleep…let down their guard…allowed the young Thunder to get confidence…
The Los Angeles Lakers were up 26 points in this game. They had a 41-19 lead after the first quarter. That lead was gone by the end of the third quarter. Russell Westbrook allowed Shai Gilgeous-Alexander to have an out-of-body experience from beyond the arc while drawing a technical foul to give him three free throws.
Allowing huge runs starting with the 12-2 run before halftime allowed the avalanche to start and the momentum only got bigger in the third frame. By the end, the Lakers were fighting from behind like the previous game.
Perimeter defense…
This team is dead last in giving up points in the paint. It’s shocking considering how bad the perimeter defense is. The Thunder went crazy from behind the arc shooting 15-37.
Russell Westbrook in the second half!
Westbrook literally went freelance in the second half. He missed shots, turned the ball over, had defensive lapses and the combination of all three put the Lakers in a world of trouble. The casuals will claim Russ had a triple-double. Reality is a part of basketball, so actually, he had a quadruple-double with 10 turnovers.
In the second half, it looked like he wanted to go for those 40 points like he did in the past.
The story from the Los Angeles Lakers’ win:
The Los Angeles Lakers looked hardly like a professional championship contender!
The first 15 minutes of this game is how the Lakers load managed in the Showtime era. Blow them off the floor early and coast their way to victory. None of the players had monster numbers, but they understand that this is the 5th game of the season and this is a marathon and not a sprint.
For the rest of the game, they had a MASSIVE letdown and allowed OKC to hang around. If anyone wants to discuss how important LeBron James is to the Lakers’ offense, there is a comment section below.