DEFENSELESS
Thunder outplayed in loss to LeBron-less Lakers
Russell Westbrook stepped to the line with 2.9 seconds left in regulation in a pressure cooker of a regular-season situation.
Consider the circumstances: Westbrook entered the Thursday-night clash with the LeBron James-less Lakers shooting 64.3 percent from the foul line. It would have been within reason to expect Westbrook to miss one, even two, of the foul shots with the Thunder trailing by three.
Of course he made them all, extending a game which the Thunder didn’t deserve to win.
The situation was a microcosm of the Thunder’s 138-128 overtime loss to the Lakers, its fifth loss in six games. Yes, the Thunder has the ability to pull itself from the depths when needed, but in the last two weeks has lacked the totality of play required from a championship-caliber team.
This late-night Thunder-Lakers shootout was full of moments like that, weird in that the OKC struggled mightily for any defensive consistency against the Lakers,
who were without LeBron James (groin).
Actually, that wasn’t weird. The Thunder has been a defensive sieve since the turn of the new year, giving up 113 points per 100 possessions, 23rd in the NBA in that span.
Other oddities abounded.
When Westbrook tied a team record with his fifth 3-pointer of the game with five minutes left, he did so at the insistence of the crowd that he not shoot. The moan was unmistakable, but the corner 3-pointer fell, pushing Westbrook somehow to 5-of-10 from 3, and 2-of-15 from everywhere else.
The worst 3-point shooting team in the league, the Thunder hit a team record 22 on Thursday ... and lost.
In the second quarter while on the bench during a timeout, Westbrook moved both hands in circles, as if he was trying to rev the Thunder back into its first-quarter gear. Paul George and Terrance Ferguson shared a joke when the Thunder watched Kyle Kuzma sink the Lakers’ seventh free throw of the quarter. This was no joke. The Thunder had too many of these moments of levity in a game it let the Lakers hang around in for far too long. Lauded for its focus in the early season, the Thunder’s concentration and execution has been nonexistent in the last two games.
Trailing 120-119, Westbrook drove and missed an uncontested layup. The Thunder produced a stop, but Ferguson and Steven Adams stood glued to their spots as Lakers guard Josh Hart beat them to the loose ball.
Hart hit two free throws to put the Lakers ahead 122-119 with 35.7 seconds left. The Thunder wasn’t laughing anymore.
Westbrook missed another layup attempt in traffic. Jerami Grant came up with a clutch block.
To even get to the overtime period in which it was embarrassed — getting outscored 16-6 and shooting just 2-of-13 on a smattering of broken offensives sets — a cluster of improbable instances had to happen.
Westbrook had to hit clutch free throws after a foolish Lakers foul.
The Thunder needed to hit a record amount of 3-pointers.
OKC scored four and five points on single possessions, the Lakers unable to get rebounds off free throws.
One sequence in particular summed up the Thunder’s current confusion.
20-year-olds Ferguson and Hamidou Diallo went to the scorer’s table to check in with 10:47 left in the fourth quarter. They had a brief conversation before looking back at the Thunder bench.
“Who’s Ferg getting?” Diallo said, prompting coach Billy Donovan to spring up and tell Ferguson he was going in for Abdel Nader.