Thunderstruck: OKC Dominates Lakers To Take Early Series Lead

Kamenetzky noted that Sessions’ offense was what hurt the Lakers the most, causing the rest of the players on the floor to fill in where he should be effective:

The other side of the coin, as Whicker pointed out, had to do with the defense displayed by Sessions on Monday night.

Look, we’ve all been there. You’re at a sporting event, you get up to take a bathroom break or a buy a giant soft pretzel or a giant bag of cotton candy or a giant soda or a giant beer or a giant thing of nachos or something and when you try to make your way back to your seat, some doofus is standing in the aisle watching the game instead of ... you know ... not standing in the aisle. So inconsiderate. Sometimes, though, that person might be an on-camera reporter.

I like the look the guy makes, like “oh geez, one of these guys.” This gentleman is lucky that the mustard-yellow plaid sports coat with the notch lapels was one of Sager’s more sedate numbers, or else we would all be fearing for his eyesight, being that close to the sartorial celeb.

The Lakers were trailing by 15 points at halftime, but things only got worse from there. While Los Angeles needed nothing more than to regroup and use their experience to take control, they instead fell behind by 30 points by the end of the third quarter. It was never close the rest of the way.

For more on the Lakers, visit Silver Screen And Roll and SB Nation Los Angeles. For more on the Thunder, visit Welcome To Loud City.

Afterwards, Ebanks was not happy. First, he slammed over a chair on the bench:

Then, in a misplaced form of macho-ism, Ebanks decided to take his shirt off as he went into the tunnel. Athletes do this a lot after playing a long game, but Ebanks only played four minutes. It’s not like his jersey had a lot of sweat on it ...

He’s right. We shouldn’t be surprised. It happened in Game 1, after all.

This is about the only thing that has gone wrong for the Oklahoma City Thunder on Monday night. What kind of gesture, exactly, is this Thunder fan trying to send Mike Brown’s way?

If you can figure it out, let us know.

Here’s the context, in case you didn’t get the joke.

After getting smoked in the first half by the Oklahoma City Thunder, Los Angeles Lakers coach Mike Brown told TNT’s Craig Sager that the Lakers would neither hedge nor switch ball screens. Instead, the players just needed to fight through the picks.

He might want to rethink that at this point. Oklahoma City just scored again.

1. Kobe Bryant is guarding Russell Westbrook from the very start of the game. Instead of conserving Bryant’s energy, it looks like Lakers coach Mike Brown is rolling with his best matchup for Westbrook’s speed from start to finish.

2. The Thunder’s double teams on Andrew Bynum are not nearly as aggressive as the Nuggets’ were in the last series. On one post play, Westbrook doubled Bynum, then scampered away to cover Ramon Sessions clearing out to the corner. That seems like a bit of an overreaction to me. Sure, Kendrick Perkins is a better post defender than anyone the Nuggets have, but it’s odd that the Thunder haven’t copied the Nuggets’ blueprint to stop Bynum.

The Lakers forward, who continues to hear the boos, already has a three-pointer, a one-dribble pull-up jumper and a deep post-up on Kevin Durant that led to a beautiful assist to Andrew Bynum. Durant has gotten him a couple times on the other end, but World Peace needs to keep hitting shots to keep Durant occupied defensively.

Also, look for the Lakers to run World Peace into the post a little more to take advantage of Durant’s frame.

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↵Of course, the Thunder didn’t exist in 1995, so we had to substitute their previous incarnation, the Seattle SuperSonics (*pours out part of venti latte*). Watch the video, and please try to respect our scientific method even if your pigeon-brain can’t comprehend our higher mathematics.

Perkins started 65 games for the Thunder during the regular season and all four games in their first-round series against Dallas. In 26.8 minutes per game during the regular season, Perkins averaged 5.1 points and 6.6 rebounds per game.

Game 1 of Oklahoma City’s game against Los Angeles will tip off at 9:30 p.m. ET and can be seen on TNT.