Chet Holmgren scored 24 points as the Oklahoma City Thunder beat the Los Angeles Lakers 108-90 in Game 1 of the Western Conference semi-finals.
Holmgren had 12 rebounds and three blocks for the Thunder. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander scored 18 points while going eight of 15 and two of three from the free-throw line, while adding six assists.
LeBron James led the way for the Lakers with 27 points and six assists. Rui Hachimura had 18 points.
The Thunder took the lead for good with 38 seconds left in the first quarter. The score was 61-53 by half-time. Thunder then outscored the Lakers by 10 points over the final two quarters.
Game 2 of the Western Conference semi-finals tips on Thursday.
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Thunder coach Mark Daigneault isn’t interested in what happened in previous matchups against the Lakers this season and isn’t concerned with what outsiders say will happen in the Thunder’s Western Conference semi-finals series.
“Every game’s unwritten,” Daigneault said. “Everything before the game doesn’t matter, and everything after the game doesn’t matter.
“All that matters is the ball’s going to go up at 7.30, the score’s going to be 0-0, and the team with more points is going to win.
“And you see that time and time again in competition. You can see it in different sports.
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“That’s just a law of competition, and I think the more our team has rooted into that over time, it’s allowed us to stay very present and allowed us to block out any noise that’s outside of that.”
After defeat, Lakers coach JJ Redick said: “When they did get an offensive rebound, they absolutely killed us.
“We’ve got to do a better job of building back out on the offensive rebound.
“You’re playing the world champs, your margin for error in terms of mistakes is not that high.
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“You can make mistakes. Basketball’s a game full of mistakes. There’s just too many tonight. We’ve got to clean that up.
“We’ve just got to do a better job with execution. It comes down to just the attention to detail on that. I know we’ll clean things up and be better.”