Oklahoma City Thunder await the Los Angeles Lakers in Game 2 on Wednesday – NBA Playoff Preview
Oklahoma City Thunder will play hosts to the Los Angeles Lakers in Game 2 of the Western Conference Semi Final series on Wednesday night at the Chesapeake Energy Arena, Oklahoma City.
After handing out a 29 point drubbing in Game 1 of this series, OKC will look to continue their winning ways having won all five of their post season games. On the other hand, LAL will look to address their issues
and bounce back strongly i.e. if they want to move past this stage avoiding the same exit as last year`s.
The score line for the first game win this series was 119-90 and was much courtesy to offensive prowess of the Thunder`s leading scorers. Russell Westbrook led the way with 27 points and 9 assists, Kevin Durant
chipped in 25 while James Harden racked up 17 points and come Wednesday night. Thunder’s triple ripple will be rearing to explode again.
Another significant factor in OKC`s astounding win was their ability to limit down their turnovers to just 4 in the ball game as compared to 15 by the Lakers, which led to easy points in transition.
Thunder were also able to limit the influence of the Black Mamba and even though Kobe Bryant managed his way to 20 points, his authority in the contest was very minimal.
However, it has to be said that time was not on the Lakers side. After playing their way out of an intense 7 game series against the Denver Nuggets, they did look very fatigued throughout the game and were no
match against the young and fresh OKC squad.
Thunder had to wait for a whole week after sweeping past the reigning NBA Champions Dallas Mavericks and awaiting their second round opponents. They returned to action strongly and did not let the rustiness to
be a factor on their play.
"We were a little worried about rust but we did a lot of scrimmaging to stay sharp (during the layoff). We just have a team full of gym rats, our guys just wanna play basketball. But this is just one game it
doesn't matter if we won by one point or 30 points we have to play well Wednesday night."-- Scott Brooks.
This kind of depicts the attitude Brooks is going to have his team prepared with and will look to take it one game at a time for the rest of the series. Lakers who have gotten the much required rest for a day
now face the task of controlling this young and surging Thunder line up.
The key to making a way back into the series may lie with the Lakers twin towers. Pau Gasol and Andrew Bynum need to come out and be the formidable force they are supposed to be. They were sitting court side
well after the entire LA team departed to the locker room and it seemed they were addressing their on-court chemistry.
Bryant has shown intents of leading his team back;
"We're a team that doesn't get down when we get blown out. We've been blown out a bunch of times this season, blown out last series a couple times. We're used to dealing with that." – Bryant
Lakers Head Coach, Mike Brown has also shown signs of trust in his teams capabilities as a unit and expects his players to figure out a way to come back into the series.
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