The Lakers are playing as well as they can — and it doesn’t matter against the Thunder

The Los Angeles Lakers have given the defending champion Oklahoma City Thunder their best effort, and it is not nearly good enough, as LeBron James and Co. now trail their Western Conference semifinals series, 3-0, following Saturday’s 131-108 defeat.

“The MVP [Shai Gilgeous-Alexander] is 18 [points in Game 1], 22 [points in Game 2], 7-of-20 tonight, and they’ve kicked our ass three straight games,” candid Lakers coach JJ Redick told reporters following the loss. “They’re an incredible basketball team.”

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Credit Redick, for real. The coach has had his team ready to play. For the second straight game the Lakers took a lead into halftime, and for a third straight game they were run out of the gym in the second half by a younger, more talented rotation.

(And the Thunder do not even have Jalen Williams, their second-best player.)

Seriously, give James credit, too. The man is 41 years old, and he has his team in the second round of the NBA playoffs, despite the absence of superstar Luka Dončić.

But the Lakers do not belong here, not without Doncic. They may have been bounced in the first round by any other team from the West but the Houston Rockets, who were without Kevin Durant for all but one game of their series.

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The Rockets were a mess. As it turned out, they needed Fred VanVleet, or any competent point guard, to run a competitive offense, and they needed Steven Adams, or another rebounder, to manufacture second chances. They had neither.

And James exploited Houston’s collective inexperience, conducting a masterclass in playoff playmaking, and a hodgepodge of role players rallied around him defensively. It was enough to take a 3-0 lead against the Rockets and hold them off in six games.

It is not enough against these Thunder, who look prepared to defend their title at the highest level of competition. And the Lakers are not the highest level of competition. They are a cakewalk on OKC’s way to meet Victor Wembanyama’s San Antonio Spurs or (less likely) Anthony Edwards’ Minnesota Timberwolves in the conference finals.

“They’re pretty damn good from top to bottom,”…

Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/nba/article/the-lakers-are-playing-as-well-as-they-can–and-it-doesnt-matter-against-the-thunder-050610542.html

Author : Ben Rohrbach

Publish date : 2026-05-10 05:06:00

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