After the Lakers’ 131-108 Game 3 loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder, their demise is inevitable.
The Thunder outclass the Lakers in every area. Last night made that clear, if it wasn’t already.
The difference between these teams is their resilience.
Resilience Wins Playoff Games
Even before the series started, almost every metric pointed to the Thunder clearly being the better team. But the playoffs are a chance for teams to ignore the numbers and fight for their season.
Pressure and adversity make or break teams at this stage of the year, and the Lakers simply cannot handle the pressure cooker that is this Thunder team.
LeBron James and Austin Reaves were awful last night. They combined for 36 points on 12-of-32 shooting and turned the ball over eight times. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander also struggled. He scored 23 points on 7-of-20 shooting.
So what does a game come down to when the stars on both teams have off nights? Fight.
The Lakers didn’t fight hard enough.
Rui Hachimura and Luke Kennard caught fire in the first half. They combined to make seven of eight 3-point attempts and carried the Lakers to a two-point halftime lead. Their shooting cooled in the third quarter, and the Thunder punched back.
Lu Dort opened the quarter with a go-ahead three-pointer and sparked a 21-6 extended run. The Lakers looked disinterested from that point on.
In the second half, they grabbed just nine defensive rebounds to the Thunder’s 16 and turned the ball over eight times to the Thunder’s three.
But at least the players fought longer than the fans did.
Lackluster Crowd in L.A.
Outside of the roar that followed the Hachimura and Kennard-fueled second-quarter run, the crowd was unresponsive from tipoff. So much so that announcer Doris Burke questioned it during the first quarter.
“Is this building remarkably quiet for a playoff game?” she asked during the broadcast.
There was not a quiet moment during the first two games of the series in Oklahoma City. The crowd at the Paycom Center refuses to let their team go into battle alone. They give the Thunder energy. And when the L.A. crowds fail to do the same, the Thunder carry that confidence on the road.
Add that to the Lakers’ list of disadvantages.
The Lakers’ fan base either lacks culture or has accepted that this series is already over.
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