The Oklahoma City Thunder return to action Thursday night with a major test as the red-hot Los Angeles Lakers visit Paycom Center.<\/p>\n
The Lakers (50-26) have won 13 of their last 14 games, including four straight, while the Thunder (60-16) have won three in a row and 15 of their last 16 to maintain the top spot in the Western Conference over San Antonio.<\/p>\n
Despite Los Angeles\u2019 surge, the Lakers are still searching for their first win against Oklahoma City this season, entering Thursday 0-2 against the Thunder.<\/p>\n
Thunder head coach Mark Daigneault welcomes the late-season challenge.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s how you figure out where you\u2019re at, and it\u2019s how you get accurate and relevant feedback,\u201d Daigneault said. \u201cUltimately, that\u2019s how you get better… and a game like this and an opponent like this helps us do that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Aaron Wiggins said the Thunder are focused on building rhythm as the playoffs approach.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we feel pretty good,\u201d Wiggins said. \u201cJust trying to find a rhythm on the court, making sure we\u2019re all on the same page… so we can finish this regular season strong and have a good feel going into the playoffs.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wiggins also praised Jalen Williams\u2019 return from injury, noting his impact on the team.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen he\u2019s out there and playing at a high level, he takes our team to another level,\u201d Wiggins said.<\/p>\n
With both teams surging, Thursday night\u2019s matchup has the feel of a potential playoff preview as Oklahoma City continues its push toward the No. 1 seed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Oklahoma City Thunder return to action Thursday night with a major test as the red-hot Los Angeles…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":693490,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3783],"tags":[7,6,310,475,179,3966,3965,312],"class_list":{"0":"post-693489","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-oklahoma-city-thunder","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-nba","10":"tag-oklahoma","11":"tag-oklahoma-city","12":"tag-oklahoma-city-thunder","13":"tag-oklahomacity","14":"tag-oklahomacitythunder","15":"tag-thunder"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116334122838077945","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/693489","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=693489"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/693489\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/693490"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=693489"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=693489"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=693489"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}