Yahoo Sports Daily hosts Caroline Fenton and Jason Fitz discuss how the Oklahoma City Thunder are proving once a again why they have no equal in the NBA postseason. Watch the full episode of Yahoo Sports Daily on YouTube or YahooSports.TV.
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Video Transcript
Because you mentioned when you were watching this game and thinking, “Are the Lakers gonna win this one?
Are they gonna make this a game?”
I didn’t.
I never felt that way.
And that’s the benefit of the doubt that the Thunder have earned over the last couple of years.
It has nothing to do, not- nothing to do with the Lakers, but more to do, in my opinion, with the Thunder than it did with the Lakers.
‘Cause even when the Lakers were up, even when the Lakers were able to scratch and claw their way to make this one a close game, I never had a doubt in my mind.
I never felt like this game was actually legitimately at risk for Oklahoma City.
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Because I feel this sense of inevitability with this Oklahoma City team, that somehow, some way, no matter what point in the game it is, no matter what the score is, the Thunder will find a way.
They’ll put their foot on the gas, and anyone in a Thunder uniform, and it doesn’t necessarily have to be Shai Gilgeous-Alexander.
It could be AJ Mitchell, you know?
It can be Cason Wallace.
It can be Jared McCain coming off the bench.
Names that the casual NBA fan has probably never even heard of before can come in and contribute for this basketball team.
So even when it felt like it was close, even when it felt like the Lakers were starting to find a little bit of mojo, I never, I, I had a question about who was going to win this basketball game, because that is just this feeling of confidence that I have in this Thunder team, that this Thunder team, Fitzy, has earned, in my opinion.
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This Thunder team went through this game last night with SGA, their MVP, on the bench late in the game where you thought, because of foul trouble, where you thought that was gonna be a difference maker.
It wasn’t.
This is a Thunder team that has been decimated by injuries all year long.
You would think that’d be a difference maker.
It wasn’t.
This Thunder team is exactly who they are right now, is exactly what we’ve been talking about all year.
It is their depth, and it is their ability to just beat you and, and, and beat you down throughout the course of an entire game that stands out here.
And I guess I would say to everybody, if you’re acting shocked this morning, this is gonna be kind of a theme as we talk about the NBA playoffs last night of, what did you expect?
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The Lakers are clearly nowhere near the team on paper or on the court that OKC is.
It would take an, a golden god effort from the Lakers on a night where everything went wrong for OKC for the Lakers to even steal a win, and the crazy part about that is they almost got that.
They almost got all of those things together.
This Lakers team is not positioned to play enough defense to slow down OKC.
We know that.
But last night, this Lakers team was at least getting scoring.
LeBron was LeBron.
Austin was Austin.
You can look around and say, “Okay, we got the big night we needed from our stars.”
Yeah, they don’t have Luka.
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They’re not gonna have Luka anytime soon.
So I think the Lakers literally last night did absolutely everything they possibly could, and had everything break their way that they needed to put them in this game and get them a win, and they lost by 18.
That’s the stunning part of who AK- OKC is, because OKC is flat out just better than LA in every possible way.
And if you’re a Lakers fan and you’re begging for a win, I would ask you, what are you begging for?
You’re begging to, to, to put off the inevitable.
You’re begging to wait to get your ass kicked for one more game.
The best case scenario here is somehow the Lakers can sneak one out, make everybody feel a little bit better.
But this isn’t about the Lakers.
This is about how good Oklahoma City is.