The last game of the Los Angeles Lakers road trip was against the Oklahoma City Thunder on Thursday night. It was the second game of a back-to-back.
Along with Rui Hachimura, Gabe Vincent, and Jarred Vanderbilt, Cam Reddish and Jaxson Hayes were also not playing for the Lakers in this game. Even though it was the second game in a row, LeBron James and Anthony Davis were able to play. It didn’t matter, though, because the Thunder were the better team and won 133–110.
With a 2-2 record on the road trip, L.A. will return home with an 11-9 record.
Even though they were short-handed in the second game of a back-to-back, the Lakers got going quickly in this one. Davis went right at Thunder rookie Chet Holmgren and got two early fouls on him. James and Taurean Prince both made three-pointers to give the Lakers an early lead. The lead grows to 10 points, with 27-16. Max Christie and D’Angelo Russell both score from deep.
Before the end of the quarter, Thunder star Shai Gilgeous-Alexander went down. This made the Lakers’ lead 37-30 going into the second.
Even with Davis on the bench, Oklahoma City kept going strong into the second quarter. In the end, they tied it up and went ahead 48–46, which made Darvin Ham call a timeout.
As soon as the timeout was over, LeBron started to charge the basket. They were sloppy with the ball, though, and couldn’t stop fouling, which let the Thunder build a double-digit lead.
As the second game of a back-to-back got old, L.A. couldn’t put together a run to end the half, and the Thunder took a 72-60 lead into halftime.
At the start of the third quarter, Davis kept being aggressive for the Lakers. The only problem was that no one else seemed to be able to keep up with him.
At the same time, Gilgeous-Alexander kept going after the paint, and no Lakers player could stop him. And after a slow first half, Holmgren got going. He even made a three-pointer to give the Thunder a 20-point lead going into the fourth quarter, 108-88.
The Lakers had to make a run early in the fourth quarter if they wanted to win. The Lakers are known for trying to come back but failing, but that wasn’t even the case in this game; the Thunder were able to keep their lead the whole time and win.