Alright welcome in to the full recap of the NBA Friday showdown between the Lakers and the Thunder where the Lakers just couldn't keep up with the the more dynamic and athletic Thunder to open up their four game road trip.
What else can I say? This was an old-fashioned rout. It's no secret that the Thunder are a top tier NBA team in the West and Durant and Westbrook are the best scoring duo in the NBA today, not to mention they also have the premiere shot blockers in the league in Ibaka.
Let's start with the positives, Pau Gasol was the Lakers' top performer with 14 points, 7 rebounds, and 3 assists on 6-10 shooting. Pau didn't play a lot of minutes, but I thought he looked good creating his own looks on his shot and again credit to Kobe Bryant getting him involved and Pau managed to cash in. Another positive our small forwards: Wesley Johnson and Nick Young. Defensively I won't judge them because when you're up against Kevin Durant, there's no chance of shutting him down with his long arms and size. Although Wesley Johnson did decent defensively tallying 2 steals and 1 block, but other than that, Johnson finished with 13 points on 6-13 shooting and Nick Young lead all scorers off the bench with 17 points and gave us needed buckets to cut down the deficit, well sort of because the Thunder just made it look easy on us.
On a limbo, Kobe Bryant tallied 13 assists, but chipped in 4 points and committed 7 turnovers, it's his 3rd game back and desperate times called for desperate measures because there's no depth at the point guard with Nash, Blake, and Farmar out. Xavier Henry scored 15 points, most of his points came from garbage time and on the charity stripe, but man he was getting hammered all game long while he was driving to the basket. His hard fall in the 2nd half caused by a foul on the Thunder's Steven Adams and that was mad ugly the way he landed on his head.
Onto the negatives, the 3 point shooting. The Lakers shot 7-25 from 3 point land, I mean both teams didn't shoot the ball beyond the arc well, so it's a negative for both teams, but the Lakers just clanked on 3s they needed to make a run because the Thunder were dominating in transition and both teams were moving the ball well, except the Thunder were simply better at that category with all the alley-oops and making the extra passes. Another negative Jodie Meeks, you can say Meeks was the scapegoat this game, finishing with 9 points, but shot a terrible 3-16. Meeks couldn't hit net and there was one play where he missed, Lakers get an offensive rebound and passed it to Meeks again and shot at that same spot, but still missed. Story of his career, he may have improved in some aspects of his game, but improvement is loss if you're not consistent. Shawne Williams, another negative, he had one or two good games this season, but he hasn't contributed big as a stretch four.
Overall, the outcome was expected. The Lakers have back-to-back nights and they play the Bobcats tomorrow and the Bobcats have been playing surprisingly well this season and add in to the fact that the Lakers have not had any luck in Charlotte since the Bobcats were first created, although they won last there season, but all-time, the record's not good. So the game tomorrow's not televised so expect a quick recap. The Raiders' home game against the Chiefs is sold out so I'll see you guys on Sunday for that game.
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