With a win tomorrow night over the Clippers, the Thunder will officially solidify the best record in the NBA.
The Oklahoma City Thunder entered Tuesday night’s game against the Los Angeles Lakers needing two wins in their final four games to guarantee the No. 1 seed in the Western Conference and the best record in the NBA. Given that the Lakers were without Luka Doncic, Austin Reaves and LeBron James, it turned into a pretty easy victory for the reigning champions, who led by more than 40 points at one point in the game.
The Lakers did make things interesting early, surprisingly enough. At the end of the first quarter, Los Angeles was only down by seven and was even closer than that late in the opening frame. In the second quarter, Oklahoma City outscored the Lakers by 11 to extend the lead to 18 at halftime. Then in the third quarter, the Thunder was plus-13 while holding the Lakers to just 15 points, and it was over from there.
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander once again scored 20+ points, finishing with 25 on the night on an efficient 10-of-15 shooting. Chet Holmgren added a 15-point, 10-rebound double-double, while Isaiah Joe was scorching hot from beyond the arc with six made 3-pointers. From there, it was solid contributions from the rest of the roster.
For the entire fourth quarter, it was the end-of-the-bench guys handling the minutes, which told the story of how one-sided this game was. It was a blowout win by the Thunder, which was expected given the circumstances. Oklahoma City had already dominated a much healthier Lakers team just last week, so doing it again against this decimated version of Los Angeles was not all that surprising.
From here, the Thunder will stay in LA to take on the Clippers on Wednesday night, and if Oklahoma City can win that game, the No. 1 seed in the West and the best record in the NBA will be officially secured. That makes it a significant matchup.