\u201cI don\u2019t think there was a turning point. I think it was a general theme throughout the night,\u201d Lakers coach JJ Redick<\/a> said. \u201cWhen we made game-plan mistakes, it bit us. I thought the Houston Game 5 was the most game-plan mistakes we\u2019ve made in a playoff game so far. We obviously lost that game. You\u2019re playing the world champs, your margin for error in terms of mistakes is not high. You make mistakes. Basketball is a game full of mistakes. It was just too many tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n LeBron James<\/a> led the Lakers with 27 points and six assists while Rui Hachimura<\/a> had 18 points, but Austin Reaves<\/a> had only eight points, shooting three for 16 from the field. <\/p>\n Lakers guard Austin Reaves makes one of his three baskets on a layup against Thunder center Chet Holmgren, but Reaves finished with only eight points on three-of-16 shooting from the field in Game 1.<\/p>\n (Kyle Phillips \/ Associated Press)<\/p>\n Also, the Lakers turned the ball over 18 times and that led to 20 points for the Thunder.<\/p>\n \u201cI just thought we had some game-plan breakdowns,\u201d James said. \u201cYou know, what we were preparing for, we had some breakdowns. And they\u2019re going to test you, obviously. They\u2019re going to see how many times they can make you have game-plan breakdowns or game-plan discipline and we had a few. Almost too many, obviously, versus a team like this. And we know what they\u2019re capable of doing. They can go on a run where it\u2019s like, \u2018Okay, we got it right here, two-possession game, three-possession game.\u2019 And then boom. It\u2019s a double-digit lead. And that\u2019s what some of the great teams do, so just can\u2019t have compound mistakes over and over.\u201d<\/p>\n Game 2 is here Thursday night and that will give the Lakers an opportunity to clean up those mistakes.<\/p>\n They were sharp on defense against Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, frequently double teaming him. He was limited to 18 points and turned the ball over seven times. Gilgeous-Alexander, last season\u2019s most valuable player of the NBA and the leading candidate to repeat as MVP for this season, got off just 15 shots, making eight. He had scored over 20 points in 140 consecutive regular season games, an NBA record.<\/p>\n Still, James found no solace in holding down Gilgeous-Alexander.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re down 1-0. This ain\u2019t Shai versus the Lakers,\u201d James said. \u201cIt\u2019s the Lakers versus the Thunder. We\u2019re down 1-0. That\u2019s the main thing. Keep the main thing the main thing, and that\u2019s who wins (or) loses. That\u2019s all it\u2019s about.\u201d<\/p>\n But the Thunder just turned to Chet Holmgren, who had a double-double with 24 points and 12 rebounds.<\/p>\n Thunder guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, driving to the basket against Lakers guard Austin Reaves, finished with 18 points on eight-of-12 shooting from the field and six assists in Game 1.<\/p>\n (Kyle Phillips \/ Associated Press)<\/p>\n There was a point in the game in which the Lakers held steady, coming back from a 13-point second-quarter deficit to get within four late in the third quarter.<\/p>\n But the Lakers didn\u2019t help themselves at the beginning of the fourth quarter, turning the ball over on two of their first three possessions.<\/p>\n When Luke Kennard turned the ball open at the start of the fourth, Ajay Mitchell scored.<\/p>\n When Marcus Smart turned the ball over, Alex Caruso waltzed in for a layup, the Lakers went down by 15 points and had to call a timeout with 10 minutes and 41 seconds left to regroup.<\/p>\n They never did.<\/p>\n They fell into a 19-point hole in the final 12 minutes of play and never recovered.<\/p>\n The Lakers lost by almost 30 points per game in their four-game series against the Thunder during the regular season, and one of the games was a 43-point shallacking.<\/p>\n The 18-point loss to the Thunder was just another reminder of what the Lakers are up against.<\/p>\n \u201cWe had our game plan and a few times we didn\u2019t do exactly what we were supposed to do within the game plan and we got a little outside ourselves on the game plan,\u201d Smart said. \u201cAnd they made us pay for it.\u201d<\/p>\n Lakers reserve forward Jarred Vanderbilt suffered a dislocated right pinky finger in the second quarter and didn\u2019t return. Vanderbilt tried to block a dunk by Holmgren, but instead hit hand on the backboard and went down in pain. Vanderbilt left the Lakers\u2019 locker room with a split on his finger and it taped up.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"OKLAHOMA CITY\u00a0\u2014\u00a0It was more of a trickle the Lakers felt, the drops coming from the defending NBA champion…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":777009,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5123],"tags":[44234,17378,310863,3757,1582,276,2385,52369,1910,314980,3136,19176,2961,8604,5615,224,5337,4158,2452,314981],"class_list":{"0":"post-777008","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-april","9":"tag-austin-reaves","10":"tag-best-of-seven-series","11":"tag-blowout-win","12":"tag-ca","13":"tag-california","14":"tag-day","15":"tag-doncic","16":"tag-game","17":"tag-game-time-decision-wednesday","18":"tag-houston-rockets","19":"tag-injury","20":"tag-la","21":"tag-lakers","22":"tag-lead","23":"tag-los-angeles","24":"tag-losangeles","25":"tag-return","26":"tag-week","27":"tag-western-conference-semifinal"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116527049903585559","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777008","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=777008"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777008\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/777009"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=777008"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=777008"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=777008"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Lakers](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/1778061564_905_.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Thunder](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/1778061565_95_.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n