| April 24 - Oklahoma City. This is not what you would expect between the defending champions and the youngest team ever to make the playoffs. The Thunder outrunned, outrebounded, outscored and basically embarrassed the Lakers. At the end the score showed a 110-89 victory for the Thunder, but it really could have been worst. Kevin Durant scored 22 points and Russell Westbrook added 18, 8 rebounds and 6 assist to lead a team that is showing that they future is bright but also their present is pretty good. Good enough to tie their first round series with the L.A. 2-2 Despite the presence of L.A.'s too big men Pau Gasol and Andrew Bynum (13 points each) the Thunder controlled the boards for the second consecutive game with collective work and a lot of enthusiasm. Kobe Bryant, who clearly is not one hundred percent healthy didn't took a field goal for 15 minutes and his late game heroics had no place on this game since Oklahoma closed the first quarter with a 14-3 run to took absolute control of the situation and led by double digits all the way until the end. Bryant, Gasol, Fisher and Artest spent the fourth quarter on the bench. Odom who hasn't been a factor so far in the series had 12 points and Artest had only 5 on 2-for-9 shooting. Artest still haven't found his shooting touch from long distance. He missed all his four 3-point attempts, and has missed 20 of 23 in the series (13%) after missing all four from long distance Saturday Game 5 will be played at L.A. where the Lakers will try to regain their composure and use their experience to avoid being the exception to the rule: Phil Jackson is 44-0 when his team wins Game 1 of any playoff series and only 3 of 52 eighth-seeded teams have ever pulled an upset against a No. 1 seed. |
