On Monday night, the Los Angeles Lakers defeated the Oklahoma City Thunder with ease, winning by 12 in a game that never truly looked that close. Anthony Davis had a routine night at the office, going for 24 points, 12 rebounds and three blocks on 7-for-12 shooting facing up against star rookie Chet Holmgren.
And it was the third time in a row that the Lakers have gotten the best of the Thunder.
The Thunder have been one of the best teams in the league all season. At 42-19, they sit 0.5 games back of the best record in the Western Conference and the second-best record in the NBA. But they cannot seem to figure out the Lakers, making up three of their 19 losses. And with the Lakers currently jockeying for positioning at the bottom of the Western Conference playoff picture, a first-round matchup with the Thunder could be in the cards.
The Lakers aren’t too focused on specific matchups, but the 3-1 record against the Thunder gives Davis some encouragement that they can repeat the success they had last season in the playoffs regardless of their seeding.
“Yeah, it’s about us for sure. Just about getting in behind the eight-ball a little bit, but we’re right there. Even if we don’t get top-six, you got to go through the whole Play-In kind of process again,” Davis said. “We don’t really care what seed we’re in. We proved that last year, it doesn’t matter. I think this goes with anyone, you just try to get in and then the playoffs are a different animal. We don’t look at it as we want to be able to have this matchup in this matchup, for us it’s just about getting in and tackling each opponent from there.”
If the Lakers do want to make up ground, they have a perfect opportunity to do so in the next week. Two of their next four games are against the Sacramento Kings, who sit 1.5 games ahead of them as the No. 7 seed. Two wins could flip the entire Play-In Tournament picture.
“That’s a very important game,” Davis said. “We play them twice within the next week or so. That’s gonna be a big game and then the one next week is gonna be a big game. We got to come in and take care of business.”
The Lakers are as close as they’ve been to the top six of the Western Conference in months, and it starts with their ability to beat one of the best teams in the conference with the Thunder.
Darvin Ham believes Lakers’ defensive effort against Thunder was best of the season
The Thunder average 121 points per game and have the third-best offensive rating in the NBA. But the Lakers held them to just 104 points and 39.4% shooting and they especially locked down in the first half as they held Oklahoma City to a mere 43 points on 30.6% shooting.
Afterwards, Darvin Ham praised the Lakers’ defensive effort, especially early on.
“I told them at halftime that was the best defensive half I’ve seen all season,” Ham said after the win. “Just the way we just fought to keep the ball in front of us, our shifts and activity behind the initial defender, help at the rim, rebounding the ball well.”
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