star guard Luka Doncic leaving the game during the third quarter<\/a> because of a left hamstring injury.<\/p>\nLuka Doncic drives the ball against the Thunder. NBAE via Getty Images<\/p>\n
Doncic will get imaging down on Friday to determine the severity of his injury. He, along with all of the Lakers, were having a rough night before he left the game.<\/p>\n
Doncic had 12 points (3-of-10 shooting, 1 of 7 on 3s), 7 assists and 4 rebounds in 26 minutes before his exit.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Austin Reaves led the Lakers with 15 points and 4 assists, but was grabbing at his left side throughout the night.\u00a0<\/p>\n
LeBron James finished with 13 points and 6 rebounds.\u00a0<\/p>\n
What it means<\/p>\n
The Lakers fell to 50-27 for just their third loss in their last 19 games, dropping the regular-season series to the Thunder.<\/p>\n
But most importantly, they left Paycom Center without knowing the status of their best player moving forward.\u00a0<\/p>\n
LeBron James brings the ball up court against the Thunder. NBAE via Getty Images<\/p>\n
Turning point\u00a0<\/p>\n
When Reaves turned the ball over on the Lakers\u2019 third possession.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It was the first of back-to-back possessions that ended with a turnover for the Lakers, with the Thunder taking advantage and scoring off both giveaways, leading to Redick calling an early timeout.<\/p>\n
\u201cI did a poor job starting the game,\u201d Reaves said. \u201cA couple turnovers back-to-back. I had four in that first quarter. I just gotta do better. Give ourselves a better opportunity to get to a better start.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Thunder had full control of the game from there.<\/p>\n
MVP: Shai Gilgeous-Alexander<\/p>\n
The league\u2019s reigning MVP didn\u2019t have the most efficient scoring night by his standards, shooting 12 of 25 from the field (1 of 4 on 3-pointers), finishing with 28 points, 7 assists and 7 rebounds in 30 minutes.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
But he controlled the game early with his passing when his shots weren\u2019t falling.<\/p>\n
And when Gilgeous-Alexander did get it going, the Lakers didn\u2019t have an answer.<\/p>\n
Gilgeous-Alexander likely cemented himself with another league MVP honors with Thursday\u2019s performance.<\/p>\n
LeBron James drives to the hoop against the Thunder. Alonzo Adams-Imagn Images<\/p>\n
Stat of the game: 8<\/p>\n
That\u2019s how many turnovers the Lakers had in the first 7 \u00bd minutes of the game, directly leading to 14 points for the Thunder, who had a 25-9 lead midway through the first.<\/p>\n
The Lakers finished with 18 giveaways against the Thunder\u2019s stingy defense.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But the lack of ball security early took them out of the game before they were even able to get in it.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe frankly had unforced turnovers,\u201d Redick said. \u201cThey had a lot more shots on goal to start the game. The eight turnovers in the first quarter really hurt us.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Up next<\/p>\n
The Lakers will play the Mavericks in Dallas on Sunday to end the two-game trip.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"OKLAHOMA CITY \u2014 Lakers coach JJ Redick said his team knew what time it was ahead of Thursday\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":695612,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3783],"tags":[7,160,185,150,368,6,310,475,179,3966,3965,209,66,312],"class_list":{"0":"post-695611","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-california","10":"tag-lebron-james","11":"tag-los-angeles-lakers","12":"tag-luka-doncic","13":"tag-nba","14":"tag-oklahoma","15":"tag-oklahoma-city","16":"tag-oklahoma-city-thunder","17":"tag-oklahomacity","18":"tag-oklahomacitythunder","19":"tag-shai-gilgeous-alexander","20":"tag-sports","21":"tag-thunder"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116339937614027411","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/695611","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=695611"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/695611\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/695612"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=695611"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=695611"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=695611"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}