Before the start of the NBA Playoffs, very few had the Los Angeles Lakers penciled in for the second round. Facing two brutal injuries to Luka Doncic and Austin Reaves, it is understandable why. However, JJ Redick's team embraced their underdog status and spit in the face of their doubters.
Not only did the Lakers win their first-round series against the Houston Rockets, but they did it by quickly putting themselves in the driver's seat with a commanding 3-0 lead. LeBron James was never going to let his team fumble that type of advantage once they got it.
The Oklahoma City Thunder are not the Rockets. Where Los Angeles could jump on the youth, inexperience, and overly cocky nature of Houston, Oklahoma City will offer no such clear openings. The Thunder are the defending champions for a reason, after all.
OKC are well-coached, perfectly established in their roles, have a clear identity, and are just flat-out mean. No one will pick the Lakers to win this series. Thankfully for Los Angeles, after the first round, this will be nothing new for this group.
Lakers should be comfortable playing the underdog after Rockets series
The Lakers know what they are up against. Ahead of the coming Game 1 on Tuesday night, Redick called their second-round foe "one of the greatest teams ever in NBA history." The second-year coach said that everyone in their building recognizes and respects that. They know the huge task at hand.
Los Angeles will be counted out by most. That will be nothing new for them in these playoffs.
"For us to be written off a few weeks ago and to win a playoff series, [it] is a big deal," Redick said after the Lakers took down the Rockets. "It speaks to the character of our team, and the leaders of our team. They didn't let go of the rope."
Had the Lakers gone in against the Rockets fully healthy, everyone would have pegged them as the overwhelming favorite to crush a flawed Houston team. That is not to say those injuries to Doncic and Reaves were a good thing, far from it. However, it does serve as a silver lining here.
Doncic is unlikely to be available for the start of the series. There has been some optimism about him returning later in the head-to-head, but nothing is truly concrete.
The Lakers should expect to be undermanned again. Quite frankly, it should be a similar mindset to what was in place for round one: if you want to give your superstar a chance to return, you are going to have to extend the series long enough.
The underdog attitude from the first round has clearly been contagious to all corners of the team in the best way possible.
"You could say nobody thought we were going to get past Houston but everybody in this building believed," Reaves said at Lakers practice. "It's the same mindset going into this."
The Thunder will not make it as easy on the Lakers, especially if the regular season clashes between these two sides are any indication. Los Angeles' mentality of "us against the world" will be more important than ever, if they want to give themselves a puncher's chance.
Add us as a preferred source on Google