LOS ANGELES — A couple of months ago, Lakers coach Darvin Ham and his staff introduced a new statistic: limbo rate, which is supposed to help quantify how well the team does, or does not do, moving on to the next play.
If the last couple of months have been any indication, the game-to-game limbo rate isn’t an issue for this team, with the Lakers bouncing back from Saturday’s home loss to the Denver Nuggets with a 116-104 home victory over the Oklahoma City Thunder on Monday night, winning for the 10th time in the past 14 games and taking the season series (3-1) from one of the top teams in the Western Conference.
The Lakers haven’t lost consecutive games that weren’t part of a back-to-back set since mid-January, but they remain at the No. 9 spot in the standings.
“We’re behind the eight-ball a little bit, but we’re right there,” Lakers star Anthony Davis said. “In the event we don’t get the top six, you gotta go through the whole play-in kind of process again. We don’t really care what seed we’re in. We proved it last year, it doesn’t matter.
“We don’t look at it is, as we’d rather have this matchup than this matchup. For us, it’s just about getting in and tackling each opponent from there.”
Led by D’Angelo Russell (26 points, six rebounds and three assists), Davis (24 points, 12 rebounds, four assists and three blocked shots) and LeBron James (19 points, 11 rebounds, eight assists), the Lakers (34-29) defensively smothered a Thunder (42-19) team that entered Monday atop the Western Conference standings.
“They’re so well-coached that you can’t relax,” Russell said. “That team has got everything you need to win and to be efficient at this level. You’ve got to be ready to play against those guys. It’s no fluke (to beat them).”
Austin Reaves (16 points on 6-for-8 shooting to go with seven assists and six rebounds) made a pair of 3-pointers late in the first half to help get the Lakers back in the game while also being the primary defender against Thunder guard and league MVP candidate Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (20 points on 5-for-13 shooting, seven rebounds, four assists).
“He did a great job,” Davis said of Reaves’ defense against Gilgeous-Alexander. “Moving his feet knowing that Shai likes to get to his reverse-between, kind of like a little push-off, and get to his middy or get to the lane and use his pump-fakes and draw fouls and things like that.
“They’re already gonna make tough shots but you don’t want to compound that with putting them on the line as well. He did a great job starting off on him of just making it tough for him and funneling him to do our defense and giving great contests.”
After a slow start, which the Lakers battled back from to tie the score at 25 going into the second quarter after trailing by 12 early (18-6), the home team had full control of the game because of their defense.
The Lakers held the Thunder, who were playing on the second night of a back-to-back after a Sunday road victory over the Phoenix Suns, to 39.4% shooting, one of their worst marks of the season.
The Thunder, one of the league’s top-scoring teams, were held to 43 points at halftime (on a season-low 30.6% shooting) and 72 at the end of the third quarter, with the Lakers leading by 17 going into the fourth.
“We did a good job of keeping bodies in front of bodies,” James said. “We know they’re one of the best one-on-one teams in the league and they live in the paint. But they’ve also been shooting the ball extremely well from the outside as well. So just tried to keep bodies on bodies and then if we get them to miss, we clean glass and we didn’t give them many second-chance points and that was key.”
Russell hit three consecutive 3-pointers in a 66-second early in the fourth with increasing theatrics, giving the Lakers a 103-79 lead, a margin that was too large for the Thunder to overcome.
“Obviously we know that D-Lo can get going,” James said. “He can make three or four 3s in a row and break the game open and he did that again once again [Monday]. The uncanny ability, that once he sees the ball go through the hoop, he can run off three or four of them, get the crowd into it, get us hyped and we’re able to take the momentum from there.”
Russell got a standing ovation from the Crypto.com Arena crowd and his bench when the third 3-pointer (off an assist from James) in the sequence left him sprawled on his back from uncalled defensive contact and the Lakers with a 103-79 lead with 9:06 left.
“I was gonna shoot it before I passed it,” said Russell, who had dished to James before James whipped the ball back to him. “I heard him, I didn’t know what he was saying. I thought he was about to attack Chet [Holmgren] or whatnot. And then when I heard him say, shoot, like go ahead, go ahead. I didn’t even know I made the shot. Just threw it up there. Lucky shot.”
“My teammates find me when I’m hot. It makes it easier when I can stretch the floor like that. That’s what shooting does. It’s a pleasure.”
Both teams took their main rotation players out late in the fourth, with the Lakers leading 116-93. In his first game since scoring his record 40,000th career point in the loss to Denver, James was able to sit out the final six minutes. Davis was able to sit out the entire fourth quarter.
“Obviously, they’re coming off a tough back-to-back,” Reaves said. “But any time you can beat a team confidently going into the fourth of that caliber, it speaks to what you did offensively and defensively. … Anytime you beat a team like that that’s been playing really good basketball, it feels good and it gives you some momentum going forward.”
Recently signed two-way player Harry Giles III made his Lakers debut in the fourth, playing four minutes.
Gilgeous-Alexander saw his streak of eight consecutive 30-point games come to an end for the Thunder, who lost for only the second time in nine games. Holmgren and Lu Dort added 15 points apiece. Oklahoma City big man Jaylin Williams missed his second straight game with a sprained left knee.
D'Angelo Russell: "My teammates find me when I'm hot. I think for me, it makes it easier when I can stretch the floor like that." pic.twitter.com/6zkXJWSpHN
— Spectrum SportsNet (@SpectrumSN) March 5, 2024
Anthony Davis and D'Angelo Russell were the spark plugs in the Lakers' win over OKC!
AD: 24 PTS, 12 REB, 3 BLK
D'Lo: 26 PTS, 5 3PM, 6 REB pic.twitter.com/QMA7CcPan7— NBA (@NBA) March 5, 2024
"Defensively we got to continue to build off this." Darvin Ham with his takeaways from tonight's win. pic.twitter.com/IvhqHaxczI
— Spectrum SportsNet (@SpectrumSN) March 5, 2024