It was a tale of two halves for the Oklahoma City Thunder on Saturday night against the Lakers. Unfortunately for OKC, their slow start was just too much for them to overcome.
The Thunder lost 125-110 to a Lakers team that didn’t have their top two scorers in LeBron James or Anthony Davis. It didn’t matter. For L.A., it was business as usual. Kyle Kuzma started in place of Davis and scored a game-high 36, while Rajon Rondo got the start for LeBron and posted a double-double.
The Lakers outscored Oklahoma City 41-19 in the first quarter. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander attributed the lopsided score to a lack of effort and told The Oklahoman after the game the difference in the team’s play between the first half and second half was pride.
“I think we were just embarrassed, and we knew what we needed to do going into the game to give ourselves a chance to win, but we didn’t do it in the first half. I think we just tried to do it a little hard and a little bit more in the second half, but it obviously wasn’t enough.”
He followed that up by saying the team has a “bunch of competitors” that “are going to give it our all” regardless of the score.
Gilgeous-Alexander and Danilo Gallinari both led the Thunder with 24.
OKC outscored the Lakers by nine in the second half, getting as close as 11 in the fourth quarter but could not close the gap any further.
Oklahoma City will look to bounce back when they travel to take on the Timberwolves on Monday night.
