{"id":703589,"date":"2026-04-07T16:00:17","date_gmt":"2026-04-07T16:00:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/703589\/"},"modified":"2026-04-07T16:00:17","modified_gmt":"2026-04-07T16:00:17","slug":"thunder-painfully-crushed-lakers-championship-dreams-in-two-heartbreaking-ways","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/703589\/","title":{"rendered":"Thunder painfully crushed Lakers’ championship dreams in two heartbreaking ways"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s been a rough week for the Los Angeles Lakers. They got stomped out by the Oklahoma City Thunder, with both Luka Doncic and Austin Reaves being injured<\/a> in the same game. OKC basically ended the Lakers’ postseason before it even began with a single brutal shot.<\/p>\n

Since late February, the Lakers have been one of the most dominant teams in the league. Starting with a victory on February 28th over the Warriors, Los Angeles has won 16 out of 19 games. That includes an impressive nine-game winning streak that changed the conversation around them.<\/p>\n

This massive turnaround in the Lakers’ season was driven by two things. First and foremost, Doncic started playing consistent, MVP-worthy basketball<\/a>. Second, Doncic, Reaves, and LeBron James have all managed to be healthy at the same time. It’s a great trio to lead a team.<\/p>\n

Then, the Lakers faced off against OKC on April 2nd. Not only did the Thunder utterly destroy Los Angeles by a score of 139 to 96, but both Doncic and Reaves also sustained injuries that will keep them out for at least the first round of the playoffs. It was a loss that changed the season.<\/p>\n

The Lakers’ postseason outlook has hit the rocks<\/p>\n

Losing Doncic and Reaves means that James now has to lead the Lakers through the first round without them. Los Angeles just does not have the depth to make up for missing two of their three best players. And James isn’t the guy to drag a team through the playoffs on his own anymore.<\/p>\n

On top of that, losing to OKC had another impact on the Lakers. Being beaten by 43 points right before the playoffs, Los Angeles’ biggest loss of the season, is incredibly demoralizing. It has likely been a huge hit to their confidence, particularly since they would have to take on OKC at some point.<\/p>\n

Based on the current standings, the Lakers would face a full-strength Timberwolves in the first round without Doncic and Reaves. If Los Angeles survives that, they’re hoping to have the boys back for the second round. That would be just in time to probably take on the Spurs, a tough fight to be sure.<\/p>\n

Look, anything can happen in the NBA Playoffs, especially when it comes to the Lakers. Still, the odds are not in their favor, and it’s all because of one game against OKC. That loss was so complete that it basically took Los Angeles’ whole season and flushed it down the toilet.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It’s been a rough week for the Los Angeles Lakers. They got stomped out by the Oklahoma City…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":703590,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3783],"tags":[7,6,310,475,179,3966,3965,312],"class_list":{"0":"post-703589","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\/116364262749381227","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/703589","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=703589"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/703589\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/703590"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=703589"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=703589"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=703589"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}