The Athletic has live coverage of 76ers vs. Knicks in Game 3 of the 2026 NBA Eastern Conference Semifinals.
OKLAHOMA CITY — With 10:34 left in the third quarter of Thursday’s Game 2 between the Los Angeles Lakers and Oklahoma City Thunder, umpire Mark Lindsay blew his whistle as Austin Reaves went down in a heap of pain. The last thing the Lakers needed was for Reaves to be injured again, like he and All-Star Luka Dončić both were exactly five weeks earlier in the same building against this same team.
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Reaves got up and finished what became the best postseason scoring performance of his career (31 points). The real pain in that moment would be applied to the Thunder, who looked like they might be on the ropes based on the consequences of the act that put Reaves on the ground.
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander had wrenched Reaves’ shooting arm while jockeying for position. The reigning MVP was called for his fourth foul, on a night where he had only four buckets, one game after being held to his lowest scoring and highest turnover counts since the 2025 postseason. The officials went to review the incident to see if it was a flagrant foul — just as Thunder coach Mark Daigneault challenged the play. While that was going on, crew chief John Goble assessed a technical foul on Thunder reserve Alex Caruso, who was on the bench.
Daigneault lost the challenge, which means that he also lost a timeout. Which meant that he also had to put Gilgeous-Alexander on the bench for the rest of the third quarter. Reaves made all three ensuing free throws, giving the Lakers a 66-61 lead. And because it was a flagrant foul on Gilgeous-Alexander, the Lakers retained possession.
Surely, this would lead to the upset win the Lakers needed on the road, right? Right?
Of course not. The Thunder outscored the Lakers by 18 points in the last 10 1/2 minutes of the third quarter with Gilgeous-Alexander out of the game. Spoiler alert: the Lakers would lose Game 2 by exactly 18 points, 125-107. Oklahoma City took a 2-0 lead in this Western Conference semifinal series, the first time the Thunder have led 2-0 in this round since they beat the Lakers in the 2012 playoffs.
After the game, the Lakers huddled with the officials to express grievances. It was clear that the Lakers were sensitive to the officiating even before the series began, with coach JJ Redick saying that the Thunder “don’t foul, which is one of the most remarkable things I think we’ve ever seen.”
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It’s easy for the Lakers to subscribe to the therapy that comes with being upset with the officiating. They have all of social media behind them for support. Some can choose to believe that the league is favoring the league’s 45th largest media market over a team in the second-largest market that has also led the league in free-throw differential for four straight seasons.
But there were things that L.A. could have controlled, and failed to take advantage of, in a Game 2 pockmarked by whistles and reviews. And they began in the third quarter, when Gilgeous-Alexander was on the bench.
“I think we gotta keep the intensity,” Lakers forward Rui Hachimura said. “When (Gilgeous-Alexander) gets off the court, I think we kind of relaxed a little bit. We still have to keep our intensity up. All of these guys, they can make plays. It’s small stuff, rebounding, all that. We got to get those, you know? We can’t have little mistakes.”
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In Game 1, the Lakers pressured Gilgeous-Alexander into almost as many turnovers (seven) as buckets (8-of-15 field goals). In Game 2, Gilgeous-Alexander’s fouls prevented him from making the normal impact. But the Thunder outscored the Lakers by nine points in Gilgeous-Alexander’s off-floor minutes in Game 1, and they were even better with Gilgeous-Alexander off the floor in Game 2, outscoring the Lakers by 13 points.
As Hachimura said, the Thunder have a way of finding contributors. Reserve guard Jared McCain is giving the Lakers fits, whether Gilgeous-Alexander is on the floor or not. McCain made four 3s in Game 1, scoring 12 points in a game that the Lakers’ bench produced only 15. On Thursday, McCain scored 13 of his 18 points after halftime, while the Lakers’ bench totaled just six points in the second half. McCain has made 8 3s in this series, twice as many as L.A.’s reserves despite the presence of sharpshooter Luke Kennard.
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In the second quarter, with Gilgeous-Alexander out of the game, McCain shed Kennard while ghost-screening for Ajay Mitchell, who was being guarded on the ball by Marcus Smart. McCain used his deep range and a convenient screen by Isaiah Hartenstein to bury the first of his 3s.
In the third quarter, again with Gilgeous-Alexander off the floor, McCain weaponized his 3-point threat to drive a closeout by Jake LaRavia. McCain dribbled comfortably into a pull-up midrange jump shot that was assisted by Cason Wallace, who got into the paint after a made Lakers basket.
Later in the third quarter, with the Thunder on a 10-2 run, McCain darted from the weakside corner off screens set by Caruso and Hartenstein. James point-switched for Kennard to pick McCain up, and Kennard passed McCain off to backup center Jaxson Hayes upon McCain using Hartenstein’s screen. Hayes left his feet, allowing McCain to dribble into a pull-up 3.
And with Gilgeous-Alexander on the floor early in the fourth quarter and absorbing a Lakers double team, McCain found himself in the corner being guarded by Adou Thiero, who was in the rotation with Jarred Vanderbilt nursing a finger injury. The ball found Luguentz Dort’s hands, and Dort drove the baseline while being guarded by Ayton. McCain lost Thiero and Hachimura, took a dumpoff pass from Dort along the baseline and finished a reverse around Ayton.
In the last 10 1/2 minutes of the third quarter, the Lakers missed 6 of 7 3s, had a 1:7 assist-turnover ratio, were outscored 11-3 off turnovers and 9-0 off second-chance points while getting outscored 15-14 by the sophomore tandem of McCain and Mitchell.
“We didn’t lose because of the refs,” Redick said. “That’s never the case. You don’t lose because of the officials. You lose because the other team outplayed you. They obviously outplayed us. … We’re not putting two on the ball in that stretch, and so we just got to be better, and we’ll look at how we can be better at both ends.”
Saturday’s Game 3 in Los Angeles will feature a different officiating crew and a friendly home crowd for the Lakers. They would do well to bring a different vibe, too.
“We need to stay in the game, keep our head in the game, be poised and under control,” Kennard said. “Obviously, it’s a game of runs; we know that. We can’t let calls or mistakes, turnovers, affect how we play and how we game plan and how we execute. That’s on us to give effort, just be ready at all times. We got to go home and protect home court. We’ve done a decent job of that so far in the playoffs, and that’s just got to be our mindset.”