OKLAHOMA CITY — By most standards, the Lakers had an objectively strong defensive game in their Game 1 loss to the Thunder on Tuesday night at Paycom Center to kick off the best-of-seven second-round playoff series.
The Lakers held the Thunder to their worst offensive offensive rating (116.1) and lowest scoring total (108) so far in the playoffs.
After a higher-scoring first half, the Lakers held the Thunder to 47 second-half points and forced the typically ball-secure Thunder to commit 16 turnovers.
They accomplished their goal of limiting the effectiveness of reigning MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, who had 18 points on 8-of-15 shooting and six assists for his lowest-scoring game since Game 3 of the 2025 Western Conference finals.
Gilgeous-Alexander’s seven turnovers were his most since Game 6 of the 2025 NBA Finals, with the Lakers’ aggressive defensive coverages of traps and double teams accomplishing their goal of getting the ball out of the reigning MVP’s hands.
There was a lot to like about the Lakers’ defense.
A lot that went well.
And yet, it wasn’t close to enough.
“I don’t think there was a turning point, it was a general theme throughout the night: When we made game-plan mistakes, it bit us,” coach JJ Redick said. “You’re 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. We’ve got to clean that up.
There [were] some good things. We won [the] expected score, held Shai under 20, seven turnovers. Guys played hard; we just got to do a better job with execution. And it comes down to just the details with that.”
Redick acknowledged most of the execution errors were on the defensive end despite his team overall having a strong performance.
Even when the Lakers trapped or double-teamed Gilgeous-Alexander, the extra defender wasn’t always coming from the right place.
“The game plan defensively,” Redick said, “whether it was a coverage thing or a Shai coverage, just seemed like every time we didn’t execute, they hurt us.”
And sometimes the Lakers didn’t help off the right players — or didn’t make the right rotations behind the double teams — leaving them vulnerable on the backside.
“We didn’t communicate well and that stuff,” Rui Hachimura said. “I made a couple of mistakes on that, too. We did a solid job, but I think we could have been better.”
Better would’ve been the Lakers not leaving Jared McCain, who knocked down three 3-pointers by this point in the game, open in the left corner after a defensive breakdown midway through the fourth quarter, giving McCain all of the time and space needed to knock down a wide-open 3 to give the Thunder a 101-82 lead.
Or being more precise with how they played after the Thunder grabbed an offensive rebound.
The Thunder didn’t get many second-chance opportunities, with their nine offensive rebounds and 31.8% offensive rebounding rate being below-average marks for them.
But they were very opportunistic and capitalized off those extra opportunities, scoring 21 second-chance points.
“When they did get an offensive rebound, it absolutely killed us,” Redick said. “Because we didn’t do a good job of building back out on the offensive rebound.”
The film from Game 1 will show a lot of good defensive moments and sequences from the Lakers.
A lot they should try to replicate in Thursday’s Game 2 at Paycom Center, specifically forcing the non-Gilgeous-Alexander Thunder players to make plays, especially with star forward Jalen Williams sidelined.
But the film will also show plenty of “not good enough.”
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: nypost.com
