The Western Conference-leading Oklahoma City Thunder will take a three-game winning streak, and a perfect road trip so far, into Los Angeles on Friday for an NBA Cup group-play game against the Lakers.
The Thunder have a 1-1 record in West: Group B, with a path toward advancing by earning victories over the Lakers and the Utah Jazz at home Tuesday. Oklahoma City could still need tiebreaking scenarios to fall their way in order to advance to the knockout round.
The Lakers’ path to advancing in the tournament for a second consecutive season is narrow. The simplest way to advance is to defeat the Thunder and have the Phoenix Suns lose to the San Antonio Spurs, also on Tuesday.
Since dropping an NBA Cup game to the Spurs last week, the Thunder have not lost, with the most recent of their three consecutive victories coming Wednesday on the road when they beat the Golden State Warriors 105-101.
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander scored 35 points, although Jalen Williams departed just before halftime with an eye injury that occurred while defending a dunk attempt and did not return. He wasn’t on the injury report for Friday’s game. Oklahoma City also was without Chet Holmgren (hip) and former Laker Alex Caruso (hip).
Holmgren is out until the new year, while Caruso has missed the past two games and won’t play Friday.
Isaiah Hartenstein scored 14 points with 14 rebounds for Oklahoma City, while doing his best to make up for the absence of Williams. Oklahoma City needed 12 points from Gilgeous-Alexander in the fourth quarter and won even after shooting just 31.6 percent in the final period.
“That shouldn’t change the way we play,” Hartenstein said of Williams’ departure. “I think we didn’t execute the way we should have. We shouldn’t have been in that (close) situation.”
The Lakers ended a three-game losing streak with a 119-101 victory on the road against the San Antonio Spurs on Wednesday. Rookie Dalton Knecht scored a team-best 20 points after making 4 of his 10 attempts from 3-point range.
Anthony Davis had 19 points with 14 rebounds while fellow star LeBron James delivered a triple-double with 16 points, 11 assists and 10 rebounds. It was James’ sixth triple-double of the season at age 39.
“I’m very proud of our group,” Lakers rookie head coach JJ Redick said of ending the longest losing streak of the season. “The response was great. It’s literally what I talked about with them before the game. You got to let go of the recent past and you got to get on to the next thing.”
A month shy of his 40th birthday, James has averaged 22.9 points, 9.3 assists and 8.2 rebounds while not missing a game this season. Knecht has continued to make an impact in his first season with an average of 11.7 points and three games of at least 20 points this season.
In two seasons of the NBA’s in-season tournament, the Lakers have lost just once and it occurred Tuesday in a 127-100 road defeat against the Phoenix Suns. The Lakers are the defending tournament champion.
–Field Level Media
