In the same city in the same arena, it was a different opponent, but still the same result.
The Thunder came up short against the Los Angeles Lakers on Tuesday night, falling 112-107, a game in which they could never quite catch up.
Dennis Schröder scored a season-high 31 off the bench, hitting on 12 of his 20 shot attempts. Danilo Gallinari added 25 while Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Nerlens Noel chipped in 16 and 15, respectively.
A night after leading Oklahoma City in scoring, Chris Paul scored only four points but did dish out 10 assists.
The Thunder have now dropped four of the last five and remain winless on the road.
Per ESPN, for the second night in a row, head coach Billy Donovan thought his team did the right things but couldn’t quite close it out at the end.
“There’s a lot of things we did well in there,” Oklahoma City coach Billy Donovan said. “But, you know, we came up short in all these games. I think the one sign you can point to is both teams, the Clippers and the Lakers, are really, really good teams, so we’re competing well at a high level. But we’ve just got to do more in order to be able to finish and close out games.”
Oklahoma City will have the next two days off to rest and return home, something that could be particularly important for Thunder guard Hamidou Diallo, as he missed his third straight game with left knee soreness.
Also of note – LeBron became the first player in NBA history to record a triple-double against every team in the league with Tuesday night’s 25 points, 11 rebound, and 10 assists performance.
The two teams will meet again in just three days in Oklahoma City. Tip-off inside Chesapeake Energy Arena is set for 7 p.m. CT.