With the NBA playoffs approaching, the Lakers Lakers make a powerful statement when demoliring Oklahoma City Thunder, the team with the best league record.
Luka Doncic scored 30 points when the Los Angeles Lakers produced a long-range devastating display to write down a surprising exploitation of 126-99 on the number 1 of Oklahoma City Thunder.
A heavyweight confrontation between the leaders of the West Conference and the third place’s Lakers was effectively established in the first half, since Los Angeles shook in 15 triples, a franchise record, to open an advantage of 78-56 at the end of the second quarter.
The Lakers never seemed to deliver that strong two -digit cushion, since they closed a comfortable victory to silence Oklahoma City.
The victory saw the Lakers go closer to securing one of the remaining four automatic places in Playoffs in the west after Oklahoma City and Houston already qualified.
The Lakers saw 22 triples throughout the game, with maiden responsible for five of them. Austin Reaves had four triples on his 20 -point tour, while LeBron James added 19 points.
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander led the city of Oklahoma scoring with 26 points on one night out of the night for the Thunder, which fired only 43 percent from the field while earning only 12 of 37 triples.
James said the Lakers had been determined not to give up after quickly starting against the leaders of the West Conference.
“Among them and Cleveland, they are the best NBA teams,” James said. “They are the number one team in the West, so you cannot give in, no matter what the score, they will always make an impulse. That is why they are where they are in this part of the season.
“So it is a very good victory for us and we can build it … we are only trying to build our habits at this time, entering the final stretch of the year.”
Reaves believes that the result was fine for the last week of the regular season, which reaches its conclusion on April 13.
Six teams are fighting for four playoff places in the West, from the third place Lakers (48-30) to the eighth Grizzlies of Memphis (46-32).
“It’s huge,” said Reaves. “As the classification are, you can go from the third to the eighth in the click of a finger. So for us to enter and play such a good team in the way we did tonight is great. We hope we can build on that impulse.”
The teams will meet again on Tuesday in Oklahoma City.
The Thunder scored less than 100 points for the first time since November 15.
