LOS ANGELES \u2014 It takes nearly a quarter-mile walk from the curb to the bus inside Terminal 4 at Los Angeles International Airport \u2014 a walk that includes a trip up two flights of stairs, down two escalators, through the mosaic-walled hallway that Pam Grier strutted through in \u201cJackie Brown,\u201d and back up again. Then, it\u2019s a 10-minute shuttle ride alongside the runway, weaving past planes and service vehicles, before arriving at the remote American Airlines terminal for one of the only direct flights.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s how you get to Oklahoma City from Los Angeles. The Lakers? That\u2019s a different story. They were good, then bad. They were faux-contenders, and they now have a real chance to play deep into the playoffs.<\/p>\n
The Lakers arrive in Oklahoma as the league\u2019s hottest team \u2014 save for the one they are playing Thursday night. They bring the NBA\u2019s best player \u2014 save for the reigning MVP who is still the heavy-betting favorite. They arrive with a clear winning style of play \u2014 only to test it against a Thunder team that Lakers coach JJ Redick says has been honing it for five years.<\/p>\n
To a casual observer, the Lakers might look like they\u2019ve been good for five weeks. But Thursday\u2019s game against the NBA\u2019s defending champions and current best team in the league is a tremendous opportunity for the Lakers to test their emerging beliefs that they might just have a championship team on their hands as well.<\/p>\n
It really shouldn\u2019t be surprising \u2014 the Lakers opened the season with three goals explicitly written out: championship habits, championship communication and championship shape.<\/p>\n
After they dominated the Cleveland Cavaliers in a 127-113 win on Tuesday that wasn\u2019t as close as the score would suggest, veteran Maxi Kleber was one of the last players in the Lakers\u2019 home locker room after a postgame workout. He didn\u2019t play against Cleveland, but he\u2019s watched as the Lakers won 15 of 17 games, and a group return to the form it was at during its 15-4 start.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe kind of established this from the start, you know?\u201d he told The Athletic.<\/p>\n
While the Lakers\u2019 \u201cchampionship\u201d recipe could\u2019ve easily been dismissed as the kind of coach-speak that lives on T-shirts and locker room walls, the messaging seeped into Kleber and Lakers\u2019 psyche.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of times, like, when you see it, obviously, you can look at it and say \u2018It\u2019s bulls\u2014,\u2019 Kleber said. \u201cBut at the end of the day, it still is a daily reminder. You know, you look at the board, you see it \u2026 sometimes, maybe it gets overemphasized and you make a joke about it. But it\u2019s relevant in your head. I think that\u2019s important.\u201d<\/p>\n
Right now, it\u2019s a Lakers team that\u2019s playing well and playing for one another.<\/p>\n
After Jake LaRavia threw down a one-handed dunk over Jarrett Allen, Deandre Ayton greeted him on the bench with a bear hug. When\u00a0Luka Don\u010di\u0107 scored his 600th point of March on a two-handed dunk of all ways, the LeBron James and the Lakers\u2019 bench erupted. Don\u010di\u0107 celebrated with two hands hoisted into the air and a gigantic smile.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are a million different forms of leadership, and every guy has their own responsibility to lead in whatever way they can. And, whether it\u2019s Smart defensively, LeBron making hustle plays, Jake with his physicality. That\u2019s leadership,\u201d Redick said. \u201c\u2026 Our team right now is the reason that we\u2019re winning. Our team \u2013 because each guy has contributed to winning.\u201d<\/p>\n
Redick, when asked about the things that have changed about his team, proceeded to list every player that\u2019s been in the regular rotation. Yes, the Lakers got healthy. Yes, the Lakers established clear hierarchy and roles. And yes, the Lakers are getting MVP performances from their best player.<\/p>\n
But not one thing is the reason why the Lakers have hit this level. It\u2019s been all of them.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it was a confluence of things,\u201d Redick said.<\/p>\n
If there\u2019s a team equipped to puncture the Lakers\u2019 confidence, though, it\u2019s the Thunder. In March, the Lakers went 15-2. The Thunder went 14-1.<\/p>\n
\u201cVery exciting,\u201d Austin Reaves said of the meeting. \u201cObviously, they\u2019re defending champs. Playing at a high level, obviously, one of the best teams in the league, if not the best team. And we have an opportunity to go into OKC and battle them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Don\u010di\u0107 closed the month with 37.5 points per game on 49.2 percent shooting from the field with 8.0 rebounds, 7.4 assists and 2.3 steals. Reaves led the league with minutes over the month, a testament to his toughness as he deals with a handful of minor injuries. And James has become an efficiency machine, hitting 56.2 percent of his shots to go with 6.9 rebounds and 7.0 assists.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe just figure out how to play together,\u201d Don\u010di\u0107 said. \u201cI think our ceiling is still higher than what we\u2019re doing now, but I think we all know basketball, a lot of basketball, so it\u2019s just very natural.\u201d<\/p>\n
In some ways, it feels like the Lakers have reached their destination \u2014 a team that\u2019s playing selfless, that\u2019s reveling in each other\u2019s successes and covering for their failures. But early April isn\u2019t June. And the Thunder have already shown what it takes to get there.<\/p>\n
For now, the Lakers are content enough knowing that they\u2019re merely on their way.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LOS ANGELES \u2014 It takes nearly a quarter-mile walk from the curb to the bus inside Terminal 4…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":693726,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[7,150,6,11],"class_list":{"0":"post-693725","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba-playoffs","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-los-angeles-lakers","10":"tag-nba","11":"tag-nba-playoffs"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116334829488186168","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/693725","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=693725"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/693725\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/693726"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=693725"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=693725"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=693725"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}