{"id":583132,"date":"2026-04-03T15:39:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-03T15:39:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/583132\/"},"modified":"2026-04-03T15:39:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-03T15:39:10","slug":"thunder-139-96-lakers-3-apr-2026-game-recap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/583132\/","title":{"rendered":"Thunder 139-96 Lakers (3 Apr, 2026) Game Recap"},"content":{"rendered":"

OKLAHOMA CITY — \u2014 Shai Gilgeous-Alexander<\/a> scored 28 points, and the Oklahoma City Thunder<\/a> routed the Los Angeles Lakers<\/a> 139-96 on Thursday night in a game in which NBA leading scorer Luka Doncic<\/a> left due to injury.<\/p>\n

Only six times in their storied history have the Lakers been defeated by more points. They fell six points short of their worst margin of defeat ever \u2014 a 49-point loss to the Dallas Mavericks<\/a> in 2017.<\/p>\n

Gilgeous-Alexander, the reigning league MVP, got the best of his matchup with Doncic \u2014 one of Gilgeous-Alexander’s top competitors for this season’s award. Doncic had scored at least 40 points in five of his previous seven games, but he finished with 12 points on 3-for-10 shooting from the field and 1-for-7 shooting from 3-point range against the Thunder’s suffocating defense.<\/p>\n

Doncic left the game with a left hamstring injury in the middle of the third quarter. Lakers coach JJ Redick said he will have an MRI on Friday.<\/p>\n

Austin Reaves<\/a> scored 15 points and LeBron James<\/a> added 13 for the Lakers.<\/p>\n

Isaiah Joe<\/a> added 20 points and made six 3-pointers as Oklahoma City shot 53.9% to turn a matchup between two of the league\u2019s hottest teams into a blowout. The Thunder have now won 16 of 17. The Lakers had won four straight and 13 of 14.<\/p>\n

It was a critical game for Oklahoma City. The Thunder entered the night two games ahead of San Antonio in the race for homecourt advantage throughout the playoffs with six games remaining.<\/p>\n

In a sign of things to come in the game, it took the Lakers nearly five minutes to make their first field goal. The Thunder led 44-21 at the end of the first behind 14 points from Lu Dort.<\/p>\n

The Lakers had another shooting drought to start the second quarter, taking a little more than four minutes to make their field goal. The Thunder reached their season high point total for a first half when they took a 76-41 lead on a layup by Gilgeous-Alexander with 3:25 left in the second quarter.<\/p>\n

Oklahoma City led 82-51 at the break, falling a point short of the Thunder regular-season record for points in a half. They scored 83 in the first half of a game against Minnesota in 2021.<\/p>\n

Joe hit three 3-pointers in an 85-second flurry to put the Thunder up 99-61 in the third quarter. The teams played reserves throughout the fourth quarter.<\/p>\n

The Lakers will host a rematch on April 7.<\/p>\n

Up next <\/p>\n

Lakers: Visit the Dallas Mavericks on Sunday.<\/p>\n

Thunder: Host the Utah Jazz<\/a> on Sunday.<\/p>\n

——<\/p>\n

AP NBA: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/NBA<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"OKLAHOMA CITY — \u2014 Shai Gilgeous-Alexander scored 28 points, and the Oklahoma City Thunder routed the Los Angeles…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":583133,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,63,726,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-583132","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-basketball","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-basketball","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/583132","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=583132"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/583132\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/583133"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=583132"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=583132"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=583132"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}