The Thunder cruised past the Lakers on Tuesday night to open their Western Conference semifinal series, even though Shai Gilgeous-Alexander scored fewer points and committed more turnovers than he had in any other game this season.
scored fewer points and committed more turnovers than he had in any other game this season in Tuesday's Game 1 of the Western Conference semifinals.
Gilgeous-Alexander, whose record streak of 140 consecutive 20-point performances in regular-season games remains active, finished with 18 points on 8-of-15 shooting. It was his lowest-scoring outing in any game since a lopsided Game 3 loss to thein last season's West finals.
The seven turnovers he committed were two more than Gilgeous-Alexander had in any game this season and the second most in his playoff career, trailing only the eight turnovers he had in a Game 6 loss to the, who led all scorers with 27 points on 12-of-17 shooting.
"We're down 1-0. That's the main thing. Keep the main thing the main thing, and that's who win or lose. That's all it's about.
" Asked to assess his individual performance, Gilgeous-Alexander said, "I was OK. It wasn't my best. It wasn't my worst.
"delivered 24 points, 12 rebounds and three blocked shots, and Oklahoma City held Los Angeles to only 37 points in the second half while superstar"I thought collectively we could have been better," Thunder coach Mark Daigneault said. "It obviously wasn't clean. It was a little clunky. ...
You can't be greedy with a playoff win that was not a perfect game. There's a lot of playoff games that are not perfect. The other team's trying their best to squeeze you and make you very uncomfortable. And so we won an imperfect game tonight, and that's a good thing.
" Gilgeous-Alexander and Daigneault both referenced the eight-day layoff between Oklahoma City's first-round sweep finale in Phoenix and the series opener against the Lakers as a potential factor in the Thunder's sloppy offense. Oklahoma City shot the ball well . But the Thunder, who were tied for the fewest turnovers in the league with 11.8 per game in the regular season, committed 16 in the win over the Lakers.
"I was loose with the ball, had a lot of turnovers," said Gilgeous-Alexander, who attempted only three free throws, a third of his norm. "I think that comes to the rust and not playing for a little bit. They're obviously very aggressive, but I feel like for most of the night we got great looks.
""I think he made the right decision all night long," Holmgren said. "I think there were a lot of opportunities where we weren't where we needed to be and he was expecting us to be there. We had a couple turnovers in the pocket like that where he threw it right to where we should have been and we weren't there. In the stat book, those are his turnovers, but they shouldn't be.
... We got to improve, be better, be where we need to be.
"A suspected outbreak of the rare hantavirus on a cruise ship in the Atlantic Ocean kills 3 people
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