{"id":1919781,"date":"2026-05-06T03:12:06","date_gmt":"2026-05-06T00:12:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1919781"},"modified":"2026-05-06T03:12:06","modified_gmt":"2026-05-06T00:12:06","slug":"thunder-run-away-with-game-1-but-lakers-show-some-fight-takeaways","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1919781","title":{"rendered":"Thunder run away with Game 1, but Lakers show some fight: Takeaways"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The Oklahoma City Thunder opened Game 1 against the Los Angeles Lakers with more of the same suffocating defense, riding it to a 108-90 blowout victory Tuesday and a 1-0 lead in this Western Conference semifinals series.<\/p>\n

Chet Holmgren (team-high 24 points), Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Ajay Mitchell, starting in place of the injured Jalen Williams, combined to score 60 points. Oklahoma City held Los Angeles to 37 second-half points and took the lead for good with 38 seconds remaining in the first quarter. The Thunder shot 49.4 percent from the field, 43.3 percent from the 3-point line and 91.7 percent from the free-throw line.<\/p>\n

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LeBron James scored a game-high 27 points to lead the Lakers, who played without injured guard Luka Don\u010di\u0107.<\/p>\n

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Here are some takeaways with Game 2 set for Thursday night in Oklahoma City.<\/p>\n

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SGA struggles, but it hardly matters<\/h2>\n

Those who tuned into the Thunder\u2019s win Tuesday watched Shai Gilgeous-Alexander\u2019s worst ball-control game since last June\u2019s NBA Finals. He tallied six turnovers, his most since Game 6 of that series. The Lakers relentlessly doubled him, meeting him close to halfcourt, and tethered his movements with their perimeter defenders. And yet, he still added 18 points on 16 shots.<\/p>\n

You get only so many glimpses at vulnerability from SGA. That the Thunder stormed off with a convincing win, regardless of their superstar\u2019s processing, should feel terrifying. The Lakers forced SGA to second-guess his decisions and commit blunders. But Gilgeous-Alexander remains an efficient ball handler and a quick learner, having seen virtually every coverage. \u2014 Joel Lorenzi, Thunder writer<\/em><\/p>\n

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Lakers show they can (maybe) hang<\/h2>\n

The Lakers entered Game 1 as massive underdogs, no reasonable people outside of their organization believing they\u2019d have much of a chance in the series. Asked about what\u2019s driven his belief that the Lakers can pull this off, coach JJ Redick said he trusts in the Lakers\u2019 ability to execute, something he saw after the Lakers lost Austin Reaves and Luka Don\u010di\u0107 and also something he saw in the first round against the Rockets. \u201cThis is a different team \u2026 the best team, and it\u2019s going to require more,\u201d Redick said.<\/p>\n

LeBron James showed in the first quarter that he could get the Lakers close, but for them to be more than competitive, they need to execute much better on the offensive side of the ball. Austin Reaves can\u2019t shoot 3 of 16, the bench can\u2019t score only 15 points and the Lakers can\u2019t turn the ball over 17 times. Some of it feels fixable; some of it feels like the tax you\u2019re going to pay for trying to beat the best team in the NBA. \u2014 Dan Woike, Lakers writer<\/em><\/p>\n

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Does Redick have tricks up his sleeve?<\/h2>\n

At Tuesday\u2019s practice prior to flying to Oklahoma City, Redick discussed how much of a priority limiting Oklahoma City Thunder runs is.<\/p>\n

\u201cRick Carlisle is like the master of that \u2014 the quick timeout,\u201d Redick said Tuesday. \u201cI\u2019ve already told the staff, already told all the players \u2014 I\u2019ve got to be more diligent than I normally am. I like my timeouts. I like going into the fourth quarter with four timeouts. I like having two in the last 30 seconds. I don\u2019t think you have the luxury of like worrying about that. Because the game would get away from you so quick because of how explosive they are when they go on their runs. And they do that to everybody. They did it to Phoenix in the first round. They did it to us in the regular season. Even in their losses, they had, on average, an 8.3 scoring run, even in their losses. So, it\u2019s what they do \u2014 mitigating the 12-15 point runs, I think, is really important.\u201d<\/p>\n

Redick didn\u2019t have to worry about that in a first quarter that saw the Thunder have a field-goal drought of more than 5 1\/2 minutes. But once the Thunder took that first double-digit lead of the game in the second quarter? Timeout. Once the lead got back to double digits again? Timeout.<\/p>\n

This was the first time the Lakers weren\u2019t down 30-plus points at halftime in Oklahoma City. When the Lakers went on an 8-2 run in the third quarter, it was only a 69-65 lead for Oklahoma City.<\/p>\n

But when Thunder went on a 7-0 lead, there was Redick again, using a timeout with 4:35 left to play in the third quarter that left him with two left for the game. When the Thunder took a 15-point lead with 10:41 left to play, Redick used his penultimate timeout. Redick did as he promised \u2014 the Thunder didn\u2019t take a 20-point lead until after white flag time, and they never got on a 10-0 run. There\u2019s not much Redick can do to close the talent gap, especially if Austin Reaves and Marcus Smart are going to miss 24 of 31 shots. But Redick is determined not to let the Thunder run away with these games. \u2014 Law Murray, LA basketball writer<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Oklahoma City Thunder opened Game 1 against the Los Angeles Lakers with more of the same suffocating defense, riding it to a 108-90 blowout victory Tuesday and a 1-0 lead in this Western Conference semifinals series. Chet Holmgren (team-high 24 points), Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Ajay Mitchell, starting in place of the injured Jalen Williams, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[226,241],"class_list":["post-1919781","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-crawlmanager","tag-nytimes-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1919781","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1919781"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1919781\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1919781"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1919781"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1919781"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}