NBA on Jan. 17: Young Lakers prove they can win

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The young Los Angeles Lakers, without LeBron James and Rajon Rondo, beat the Oklahoma City Thunder in overtime on Thursday to give OKC the fifth loss in their past six games. Meanwhile, Gregg Popovich, head coach of the San Antonio Spurs, said he was not sure whether he will coach the team next season, reported Marc Stein of The New York Times.

A rare 3-pt contest between Lakers and Thunder

Lonzo Ball #2 of the Los Angeles Lakers and Terrance Ferguson #23 of the Oklahoma City Thunder shoot three-pointers in the game in which the Lakers beat the Thunder 138-128 on January 17. /VCG Photo

Young Lakers took over the game on Thursday. Kyle Kuzma scored the court's highest 32 points and sank seven three-pointers with 12 attempts. Ivica Zubac exploded in offense in the paint by making 10 of his 12 shots to drop 26 points and the team's most 12 rebounds. Lonzo Ball put down double-double of 18 points and 12 assists and so did Josh Hart, who scored 12 points and 10 rebounds.

Oklahoma City saw three of their players scoring 20+ points. Paul George dropped the highest 27 plus seven rebounds and eight assists. Russell Westbrook missed one rebound for triple-double (26 points, nine rebounds and 13 assists). Terrance Ferguson scored 21 points that came from his 6/12 of three-pointers. Steven Adams also put down a double-double of 17 points and 15 rebounds.

Paul George of the Oklahoma City Thunder talks to his teammates in the game against the Lakers on January 17. /VCG Photo

No one would have expected the Lakers and the Thunder, two of the league's worst 3-pt shooting teams, to make in total 41 three-pointers in the game on Thursday. What's even more surprising was that both managed to strike a balance between production and efficiency: The purple and gold sank 19 shots with a 3-pt rate of 47.5 percent while OKC made 22 with a rate of 40.74 percent.

However, the above results came from the different defense styles of the two teams. Both the Lakers and the Thunder at the beginning chose to concentrate around the rim to test each other's outside shooting. As the two teams kept making three-pointers in response to defense, OKC changed first to expand their defense out of the paint, which explained why the Lakers began to lead in scoring in the restricted area from the second quarter (after Q2: 24-12, after Q3: 34-20, after the game: 56-24).

Jerami Grant #9 of the Oklahoma City Thunder drives to the rim under the defense of two Lakers in the game on January 17. /VCG Photo

By contrast, the purple and gold stuck to their tactics the whole time. As a result, every time an OKC player penetrated into the paint, he would find at least three Lakers standing in front of him, raising their arms while others waited in the two elbow areas, ready to intercept the passes to shooters outside.

Another thing that the Lakers did better was in their free throws. Before the game, they were NBA's worst free-throw shooting team with a rate of only 68.3 percent. However, the team made 19 of the 21 free throws they earned on Thursday with an outstanding 90.5 percent rate.

Steven Adams #12 of the Oklahoma City Thunder dunks n the game against the Lakers on January 17. /VCG Photo

The Thunder, of course, had their advantages. First, they forced in total 23 turnovers by the Lakers via their aggressive defense and thus led in turnover points 31-15. Moreover, though OKC trailed in general rebounding 44-63, their better offensive rebound brought the team more second-chance points (31-18).

However, the Thunder still lost the game for three reasons. First, the team's bench players contributed too little. OKC's five substitute players in total dropped 23 points and one of them scored double digits. By contrast, the Lakers sent seven bench players to the court who scored in total 61 points. Zubac and Hart even took double-doubles.

Second, OKC lacked change in the game. It's already no secret that the Thunder had very limited moves, especially in offense. It's true that they shot way better three-pointers on Thursday than usual, but that did not justify the team's obsession with 3-pt in overtime. The Thunder shot 13 times in OT and 12 of them were from the 3-pt line. Having missed 10 of these shots, the team had only themselves to blame for trailing 6-16 in OT.

Russell Westbrook #0 of the Oklahoma City Thunder handles the ball in the game against the Lakers on January 17. /VCG Photo

Third, again, it's about Westbrook. It should not be ignored that he tied the score 122-122 by earning three free throws and making all of them at the end of the fourth quarter. His 3-pt rate (41.6 percent) and free throw rate (70 percent) were also much better than usual. However, all of these were nullified by his 23.3 percent of field goal rate (7/30) and poor choices in key moments of the game. For example, could anyone explain why Paul George, OKC's best and most reliable scorer, so far this season did not even touch the ball in five minutes of the fourth quarter and overtime?

By contrast, though the Lakers put a ridiculously young franchise (21.8 years old on average) on the court from the last moments of Q4 until the end of OT, they made much smarter choices thanks to Lonzo Ball, who knew when to ask who to do what. Instead of continuing the 3-pt contest, the young men of the purple and gold managed to move the ball more reasonably and find the teammate in open to score easy points.

Will this be Popovich's last season with the Spurs?

Gregg Popovich, head coach of NBA's San Antonio Spurs /VCG Photo

Gregg Popovich, who has already won 1,223 regular games (the third most in NBA history) with the San Antonio Spurs, said he was unsure if he would still be coach the team after the 2018-19 season. "I don't know the answer," said Popovich when asked about his plan in an interview on Wednesday.

Already in the final year of his five-year contract with the Spurs, Popovich will turn 70 years old on January 28. He said he had already talked about this issue with the team's president R.C. Buford, who said: "He'll coach as long as he wants to coach."

From left to right: Manu Ginobili, Tim Duncan, Popovich and Tony Parker /VCG Photo

Since he began to coach the team in 1996, Popovich gradually became the basketball icon of San Antonio and he saw way too many players come and leave, including David Robinson, Avery Johnson, Bruce Bowen, Tim Duncan, Tony Parker, Manu Ginobili and Kawhi Leonard. In over 20 years, he always managed to help the team adapt to various changes and claim their five NBA championships in franchise history.

No matter what his decision is with the Spurs, Popovich will be coaching Team USA in the next two summers for the 2019 FIBA Basketball World Cup in China and the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo.

Other games on Thursday included: (away teams come first)

New York Knicks 100-101 Washington Wizards

Sacramento Kings 95-114 Charlotte Hornets

Philadelphia 76ers 120-96 Indiana Pacers

Phoenix Suns 109-111 Toronto Raptors

Chicago Bulls 105-135 Denver Nuggets