There are rough evenings.
And then there are nightmares.
For the Lakers, the latter might even fall short of describing what happened Thursday.
They imploded against the reigning champion Thunder in a measuring stick game, 139-96. Luka Doncic suffered a left hamstring injury in the third quarter and will undergo an MRI exam on Friday. And Austin Reaves got banged up and was grabbing at his side and back throughout the contest.
It was a disaster for a team that had spent the last month clawing their way up the Western Conference standings with a 16-2 run. They had inserted themselves into the championship contender conversation. Doncic had risen to the forefront of the MVP race.
The Thunder took a pin to those narratives, popping them as though they were nothing but overinflated balloons filled with hot air.
The Lakers knew what was on the line against the top-seeded Thunder and reigning MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander.
This was their test to show they were the real deal. But long before Doncic got injured, they arrived for their final exam hungover and without a pencil.
It might seem hyperbolic to claim one game carries so much weight.
But then again, did you watch Thursday’s contest?
In the first quarter, the Lakers were outshot from the field, 63% to 33%, and they had more turnovers (eight) than field goals (five).
In the second quarter, they trailed by as much as 35 points.
Their deficit grew as large as 46 points, their biggest hole of the season.
“They beat the s—t out of us tonight,” said Reaves, who had a team-high 15 points along with four turnovers.
The Thunder emphatically stomped out the Lakers’ roaring flame, reducing all of the hope and excitement of the last month to embers struggling for oxygen.
The Lakers aren’t contenders. And Doncic is not the MVP.
But it gets way, way worse than that.
If Doncic’s injury is serious, LA may not even get past the first round of the playoffs.
And if Doncic misses the team’s final five games, he’ll be disqualified from all NBA awards because of the league’s 65-game threshold. (Doncic has played in 64 games this season.)
That’s right, the guy who’s leading the league in points (33.5), is third in assists (8.3) and sixth in steals (1.6) could’ve gone from trying to surpass Gilgeous-Alexander for the league’s most prestigious individual honor to being wiped off the board entirely in one dreadful evening.
“At this point, at this juncture of the season, it’s the last thing you want to see,” said LeBron James, who had 13 points, six rebounds and two assists in the second-worst loss of his career. “Especially, anybody on our team. But when you have an MVP candidate on your team, the last thing you want to see is somebody go down with a hamstring injury.”
Thursday was one of those nights that will haunt the Lakers, especially coach JJ Redick.
Doncic was grabbing at his left hamstring in the second quarter. Why the heck did Redick allow him to re-enter a game in which the Lakers were down by 31 points at halftime? Doncic wasn’t going to rescue the team on a night in which he had more turnovers (six) than field goals (three).
“We checked him out,” Redick said. “He got work done. He was cleared. I mean, again, we’re not going to put a player at risk. Those things happen.”
Doncic should’ve never played in the third quarter. That was a massive mistake that could have major consequences for a team that was soaring.
It was just one of those nights.
LA had beaten multiple contenders over the last month, including the Rockets (twice), Timberwolves, Knicks and Nuggets.
If they had beaten the Thunder, they would’ve been considered real threats for the Larry O’Brien Trophy. And Doncic’s MVP case would’ve become far more bulletproof.
Instead, they walked away from Thursday’s game mortified and hobbled, like a boxer who fought way above his weight class.
This wasn’t just a bump in the road. It was an unraveling.
It was a nightmare.
But the Lakers don’t get to wake up from this and pretend it never happened.
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