Thunder’s overtime loss to Lakers was one of OKC’s best games of the season

The OKC Thunder lost to the Los Angeles Lakers in overtime, but it isn’t a stretch to call Monday’s game the best of Oklahoma City’s season.

The Oklahoma City Thunder fell to the Los Angeles Lakers on Monday, but it’s not a stretch to call the 119-112 overtime loss their best game of the season.

After leading by five with just two minutes left to play, the Thunder were undone by the Lakers’ veteran experience — and, of course, LeBron James.

James finished with 28 points, 14 rebounds and 12 assists, outdueling Shai Gilgeous-Alexander’s 29 points, 10 assists and seven rebounds.

The Thunder had the right ingredients to win: They went on a big run late, outscoring the Lakers 16-2 to close the third quarter. They protected the ball well, committing zero turnovers in the second quarter, one in the third and three in the fourth.

And there were once again heroics from Gilgeous-Alexander, who had nine points in the final four minutes, including three free throws that sent the game to overtime.

His late shots were ridiculous.

What can a defense even do about those?

After the Lakers successfully challenged a Dennis Schroder block that was initially called a foul with 8.8 seconds to play, Darius Bazley won a jump ball over James.

Gilgeous-Alexander got upcourt and pulled up from 3 — or so defender Kentavious Caldwell-Pope thought. He fell for a pump-fake and fouled Gilgeous-Alexander, who calmly sank all three free throws with 1.2 seconds to play.

“That was pretty impressive. It takes a lot of guts to go up there and make the shots like he did,” head coach Mark Daigneault said.

“The management of the clock … The jump ball took him in the back court and he only had about five seconds when he gathered it. Just the awareness to get up to the line and to shot fake in that situation, it was a really mature play. So I was as impressed with his ability to get to the line in that situation as I was with him stepping up and making three shots.”

Gilgeous-Alexander was one of three Thunder players to score at least 20 points.

Bazley, who had a double-double at halftime, finished with 21 points and a career-high 16 rebounds.

“He’s being put in a lot of situations where he’s playing against more physically developed players,” Daigneault said. “It takes a lot of competitiveness and physicality to compete. He’s done a nice job of adjusting to that.”

Hamidou Diallo had 20 points and 11 rebounds, five of which came on the offensive glass.

That was an area the Thunder dominated on Monday. Kenrich Williams had six offensive rebounds, helping Oklahoma City finish with 15 total.

“Those guys are monsters. It’s every night,” Daigneault said. “There was plenty of times it got dicey tonight and they came up with a ball that we desperately needed at that time.”

It wasn’t a perfect game. In fact, many of the raw numbers simply don’t look good: The Thunder shot just 39.1% from the field and 31.6% from deep. They attempted just 19 free throws to the Lakers’ 29. They were outrebounded, out-assisted and were blocked 12 times. OKC only scored two points in overtime, a sloppy period overall.

But that’s not the proper way to gauge this performance. The Thunder only had eight active players. Four of their rotation guys were injured. They pushed the reigning champions to overtime.

Williams was asked if he was disappointed by the loss.

“I wouldn’t say disappointed … I don’t have a word for it,” he said. “I’m proud of the team and I’m proud of the way we competed. This is the best team in the NBA … We gave them a run for their money, so that’s all you can ask for.”

Oklahoma City has a tendency to fall asleep for quarters — or halves — at a time. The team has had too many games in which the opponent scores twice as many points in the first quarter as OKC. There have been too many games in which the Thunder trail by double-digits at halftime.

Monday was nothing like that. The game was consistently close — OKC outscored the Lakers by seven in the first quarter, got outscored by three in the second quarter, won the third quarter by four and then saw the Lakers win the fourth by eight.

Overtime was sloppy as the Lakers ran away with it, but this was a different game than the last outing a month ago, when OKC fell to Los Angeles by 29.

“This time around, it was like it’s supposed to be – (we’re) playing hard, (we’re) competing, and we’re trying to get it done as a team,” center Al Horford said.

On Monday, they were two minutes of defense away from winning. It’s a positive step.

“This isn’t a bad loss — I would say that,” Williams said. “It’s still an L, but it isn’t a bad loss. We can take some things away from this game.”