Little joy in the Lakers on Kareem’s birthday

Like a funeral where it’s frowned upon to smile, The Los Angeles Lakers gave themselves a timid joy this Friday against a very limited Oklahoma City Thunder in the last home game of the Los Angeles team before going on vacation (120-101).

After consummating his enormous failure on Tuesday to stay out of the “play-in”, the Lakers at least ended their awful eight-game losing streak today.

What can no longer be fixed is his terrible balance of 5-18 after All-Star nor their elimination from the “playoffs” when in the preseason they appeared as one of the great contenders for the ring.

Without LeBron James, Anthony Davis, Russell Westbrook and Carmelo Anthony (these stars also didn’t play Thursday against the Golden State Warriors), lhe Lakers were led by Stanley Johnson (21 points and 8 rebounds) in front of eight players with at least 10 points.

It was not a night of great luxuries, since the local team could not distance itself until the last quarter (30-19) from the Thunder who are penultimate in the West and who appeared in this match with only six players -none of them regulars in its rotation throughout the course – to carry out experiments and tests of all kinds. A) Yes, Jaylen Hoard was the Thunder’s leading scorer (27 points and 17 rebounds) and he only rested one minute and 10 seconds in the entire duel.

Neither team excelled on the triple (9 of 31 for the Lakers, 6 of 29 for the Thunder).

The Lakers will put an end to their painful season on Sunday at the Denver Nuggets court, but their last home game of this course served to celebrate the imminent 75th birthday of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who appeared in the middle of the court alongside other NBA legends such as James Worthy and Bill Walton.

A lackluster victory

With 11 points in the first set, the Greek Georgios Kalaitzakis guio a unos Thunder who, without making much noise, closed the first quarter ahead (27-28).

Oklahoma coach Mark Daigneault held his own all night in his tryouts with only six players in the rotation.

The Lakers weren’t very resourceful either, but between Dwight Howard, Malik Monk and Talen Horton-Tucker they led the purple and gold team into halftime with a small lead (56-52).

Fans who flocked to Lakers Stadium didn’t exactly enjoy a perimeter fest in the first half, as the two teams teamed up for a dismal 9-of-34 3-point shooting.

After the break, the Thunder gave a scare to some sleeping Lakers and Jaylen Hoard and Isaiah Rob returned control to the visiting team (66-67 with 7:24 to go). That’s as far as these Thunder with such limited rotationwhich began to be loaded with faults and those who began to run out of gasoline.

More due to their rival’s demerits than their own successes, the Lakers took the helm with Stanley Johnson putting order and opened a small gap with Wenyen Gabriel cheering the inside game up a bit (90-82).

With the Thunder already exhausted, the last quarter served to seal a lackluster victory for the Lakers and for them to shine with various Mason Jones acrobatic basketsfrom the South Bay Lakers of the G League and who debuted today with the Los Angeles team with 13 points and 4 of 4 shots.