{"id":732200,"date":"2026-05-12T07:30:21","date_gmt":"2026-05-12T07:30:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/732200\/"},"modified":"2026-05-12T07:30:21","modified_gmt":"2026-05-12T07:30:21","slug":"relentless-thunder-do-just-enough-to-beat-resilient-lakers-take-game-four-115-100-sweep-series-4-0","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/732200\/","title":{"rendered":"Relentless Thunder do just enough to beat resilient Lakers, take game four 115-100, sweep series 4-0."},"content":{"rendered":"

LOS ANGELES \u2014 Oklahoma City<\/a> is relentless.<\/p>\n

The Lakers<\/a> did not roll over after being down 0-3 in their series, they came out with a game plan and energy, got an early spark from Austin Reaves<\/a>, and led by five after 12 minutes. When they got down double digits in the third quarter, they fought back again to take the lead.<\/p>\n

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Give the Lakers credit, they were not the 76ers<\/a>. They showed up and showed resilience.<\/p>\n

“I thought there were two different times during the game where our team could have gave in, could let go the rope,” Lakers coach JJ Redick<\/a> said. “We didn’t.”<\/p>\n

But the Thunder are relentless.<\/p>\n

With the game tied with 49 seconds left, Oklahoma City closed the game on a 6-1 run to pull away for a 115-110 victory, completing their sweep of Los Angeles.<\/p>\n

The Thunder remain undefeated in these playoffs, 8-0, and now will have at least close to a week off (and maybe more) waiting for the winner of the Minnesota<\/a> vs. San Antonio<\/a> series, which is tied 2-2.<\/p>\n

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The Lakers head into an offseason with a lot of questions, and changes are coming \u2014 five Lakers are free agents, and another three have player options. LeBron James<\/a> is one of the free agents and said he is going to take some time to decide if he wants to come back for a record 24th NBA season \u2014 and if he does, where he might play. Austin Reaves has a player option he is not going to pick up \u2014 he is going to get paid. Whether that is by the Lakers or someone else remains to be seen.<\/p>\n

Reaves and LeBron showed their value on Monday night, but it wasn’t enough against a Thunder team that just had too many weapons and executes too well on both ends of the court.<\/p>\n

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander<\/a> showed why he is about to be named the two-time NBA MVP, scoring 35 points with eight assists on the night.<\/p>\n

What makes the Thunder so tough to beat \u2014 so relentless \u2014 is that SGA is not a one-man band.<\/p>\n

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Ajay Mitchell<\/a> \u2014 a second-year pro who played just 84 minutes in the playoffs a year ago \u2014 scored 28 points on 12-of-19 shooting, taking some of the shot creation load off of Gilgeous-Alexander as the Lakers doubled him. Chet Holmgren<\/a> had 16 points on 6-of-9 shooting, including some clutch buckets late, and had nine rebounds.<\/p>\n

Reaves led the Lakers with 27 points, while LeBron had 24 points and 12 rebounds. Rui Hachimura<\/a> \u2014 another of the Lakers’ free agents \u2014 scored 25 points, including 4-of-8 from 3-point range.<\/p>\n

The Lakers did a better job defensively in the first half than they had all series, holding the Thunder to a 102.1 offensive rating despite 14 from Gilgeous-Alexander. The challenge was scoring on the Thunder defense: The Lakers shot just 39.5% in the first half and were 2-of-13 from beyond the arc (they just missed some open looks). Remove LeBron and Reaves from the equation and the Lakers shot 35% in the first 24 minutes. Still, they only trailed by four, 49-45. They were playing hard.<\/p>\n

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The Thunder had owned the third quarter in this series and for the first half of the quarter that did not change, Oklahoma City went on a 17-0 run holding the Lakers scoreless for 6:40 in the third quarter to take control of the game.<\/p>\n

OKC pushed its lead out to 12. The Lakers did not quit.<\/p>\n

Behind Reaves getting downhill and drawing fouls, plus 12 points from Rui Hachimura, the Lakers ended the third on a 6-1 run and had an 84-80 lead after 3. That was the first time the Thunder have trailed entering the fourth quarter all playoffs.<\/p>\n

But the Thunder are relentless. And they are moving on.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LOS ANGELES \u2014 Oklahoma City is relentless. The Lakers did not roll over after being down 0-3 in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":732201,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3783],"tags":[679,5577,1013,7,366,1661,185,307,6,310,475,179,3966,3965,1012,969,209,2152,4683,312],"class_list":["post-732200","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oklahoma-city-thunder","tag-76ers","tag-ajay-mitchell","tag-austin-reaves","tag-basketball","tag-chet-holmgren","tag-jj-redick","tag-lebron-james","tag-minnesota","tag-nba","tag-oklahoma","tag-oklahoma-city","tag-oklahoma-city-thunder","tag-oklahomacity","tag-oklahomacitythunder","tag-rui-hachimura","tag-san-antonio","tag-shai-gilgeous-alexander","tag-the-lakers","tag-the-thunder","tag-thunder"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116560437165302546","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/732200","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=732200"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/732200\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/732201"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=732200"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=732200"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=732200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}