The Oklahoma City Thunder turned a close game into a blowout Tuesday night, using a decisive second-quarter run to defeat the Los Angeles Lakers 123-87 at Crypto.com Arena.<\/p>\n
Despite the Lakers playing without LeBron James, Luka Don\u010di\u0107, Austin Reaves, and Marcus Smart, the game remained tied at 42 midway through the second quarter.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s when head coach Mark Daigneault called a timeout, and the Thunder took control.<\/p>\n
Coming out of the break, Alex Caruso hit a three-pointer, Jared McCain added a basket, and Oklahoma City never looked back. The Thunder outscored the Lakers 81-45 the rest of the way.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought offensively we were a little more purposeful and intentional coming out of that,\u201d Daigneault said. \u201cWe just had some sloppy possessions\u2026 we made an emphasis to run more intentional offense. We scored, and that helps us set our defense and got the ball rolling in the right direction.\u201d<\/p>\n
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander led all scorers with 25 points, while Isaiah Joe knocked down six three-pointers off the bench.<\/p>\n
McCain added 15 points and continued to emphasize the team\u2019s chemistry and maturity.<\/p>\n
\u201cBeing able to just play free\u2026 it just feels right when I\u2019m out there with them,\u201d McCain said. \u201cNo matter who\u2019s playing, it\u2019s always about us\u2026 I think that carries us through.\u201d<\/p>\n
McCain also credited off-court bonding, including team dinners and time spent together on the road, as a key factor in Oklahoma City\u2019s chemistry.<\/p>\n
\u201cBeing friends off the court\u2026 that builds chemistry and shows up on the court,\u201d McCain said.<\/p>\n
With the win, Oklahoma City improved to 63-16 on the season and extended its dominant stretch late in the year.<\/p>\n
The Thunder now head across Los Angeles to face the Los Angeles Clippers. A win would clinch the No. 1 seed in the Western Conference.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Oklahoma City Thunder turned a close game into a blowout Tuesday night, using a decisive second-quarter run…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":705462,"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-705461","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\/116369888960949884","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/705461","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=705461"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/705461\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/705462"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=705461"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=705461"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=705461"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}