LOS ANGELES — With the Los Angeles Lakers trailing the Oklahoma City Thunder by two points, and less than 30 seconds remaining in Friday night’s game, the Lakers needed a defensive stop for a chance to tie or take the lead.
As Max Christie crouched in his stance, waiting for Shai Gilgeous-Alexander to charge, coach JJ Redick called out a defensive coverage.
Christie, misunderstanding what Redick was signaling, thought his coach was implying the Lakers had a foul to give and fouled Gilgeous-Alexander on a drive. The Lakers did not have a foul to give. The Thunder were already in the bonus — and had been in the bonus for several minutes.
Gilgeous-Alexander calmly walked to the free-throw line and sank both shots, extending the Thunder’s lead to four with 22.4 seconds left and essentially icing the game.
“It was a misinterpretation on my part,” Christie said. “I knew the time and score of the game, but I didn’t realize they were in the bonus. … I take responsibility for that. … I’m not going to say that my mistake cost us the entire game, but it was definitely probably the biggest one of the game.”
The Lakers’ 101-93 loss to the Thunder on Friday dropped them to 11-8 and eliminated them from the NBA Cup. Los Angeles has lost three straight home games and four of five games overall, with several coming against teams that project as some of the best in the West (the Thunder, Denver Nuggets and Phoenix Suns).
Christie’s foul may have been the loudest error, but it was far from the only one. On the next possession, Austin Reaves, who played through an arm injury he suffered late in the second quarter that required him to briefly leave the game, threw an errant pass to Dalton Knecht that was picked off for a game-sealing dunk by Jalen Williams.
LeBron James, Reaves and Russell combined for 14 of the Lakers’ 17 turnovers, which led to 20 points for the Thunder, who lead the league in points off turnovers. And for a Lakers team that ranks 25th in the NBA in defense, those types of errors are too much to overcome against elite competition.
“There were half-dozen to a dozen plays that just shot us in the foot even before the late-game stuff,” Redick said. “We played well enough and hard enough to win against the best team in the West. So, there’s definitely good stuff.”
James, in particular, had several inexcusable turnovers. He had multiple travels and jump-passes that ended up in the Thunder’s hands. He’s turned the ball over four or more times in nine straight games and five or more times in four straight games.
The past two-plus weeks have easily been one of the worst decision-making stretches of his legendary career. James had 59 turnovers in 14 games in November. The last time he had that many turnovers in a month was January 2021, and he did so in 16 games.
High-usage superstars will always be among the league leaders in turnovers. Still, many of James’ recent miscues have been questionable.
“They got great hands,” James said of the Thunder. “Very aggressive at the point of attack. They got some guys that can guard the ball. They do a good job of getting their hands on loose rocks out there, 50-50 balls.”
The loss undermined what had otherwise been one of the Lakers’ best defensive performances of the season. The Lakers followed up an impressive defensive outing against the San Antonio Spurs by holding the Thunder to 101 points, including 40.9-percent shooting and 32.5-percent 3-point shooting. Oklahoma City scored just 39 points across the second and third quarters. Los Angeles also allowed a season-low 38 paint points.
The Lakers did a good job of both walling off the paint and spraying out to shooters. The Thunder’s offensive system is difficult to stop because they have shooting and ballhandling everywhere, forcing the opposing defense to get into rotation and scramble. The Lakers held up as well as they reasonably could.
“That was as connected as our group has been on that end of the floor since the first game of the season,” Redick said. “Just a really outstanding job with a lot of the stuff we talked about.”
Their only defensive shortcomings were they didn’t force many turnovers (the Thunder had only 10), and they allowed 15 offensive rebounds as the hectic style of defense allowed the Thunder perimeter to crash among the chaos.
Those two OKC advantages — along with Los Angeles’ turnovers — led the Thunder to attempt 20 more shots than the Lakers, which was the difference in the game.
“I mean, when you’re shading and helping a lot – especially against Shai and J-Dub – they have a numbers game on offensive rebounding,” James said. “But we got to do a better job of trying to clean glass.”
Following a 3-0 start against three playoff-caliber opponents and a six-game win streak that propelled them to 10-4, the Lakers have seemingly been reminded of their place in the league hierarchy recently.
They were crushed in the second half in demoralizing blowout losses to the Denver Nuggets and Phoenix Suns. They also lost nail-biters to the Orlando Magic and Thunder in which they executed poorly down the stretch. Their lone win was a rout of the San Antonio Spurs, who are above .500 but just 10th in the West. They went just 1-4 in this five-game stretch that some around the organization felt would be telling of where they currently stand.
Near the quarter-mark of the season, the Lakers appear to be an above-average team that can compete with just about anybody any night, but can’t always summon the defensive effort, focus or execution to beat the league’s best. They are 7-1 against teams below .500 and just 4-7 against teams above .500.
The beginning of December will further test the Lakers. After their pitstop at home — the Lakers played a back-to-back in Phoenix and San Antonio before Thanksgiving — they head back on the road for a four-game trip in Utah, Minnesota, Miami and Atlanta. The Lakers have already dropped to sixth in the West after being in the top four for much of the early part of the season, and are at risk of finding themselves in an unenviable hole if they can’t stop this skid soon.
“We got to figure it out,” James said of the upcoming road trip. “Lean on each other if you don’t have it. … It’s going to be a tough road trip for us. We got to be ready to go.”
(Top photo: Ronald Martinez/Getty Images)
