After the Metta World Peace fallout with James Harden being sent to the locker room and a suspension likely to follow, the Los Angeles Lakers began to fall apart with the Oklahoma City Thunder motivated and ready to prove who the best team in the Western Conference is. Shortly after the ejection of World Peace, the Thunder got out to a commanding 18-point lead and seemingly had the game in hand, but that turned out not to be the case.
Once Lakers Coach Mike Brown realized that the game might essentially be over for the Lakers, Ramon Sessions and Andrew Bynum were sent to the bench. Sessions was bothered by his injured shoulder and Bynum simply wasn’t playing well. As a result, Brown sent in Steve Blake and Jordan Hill to see if they could step up in crucial game at a crucial time.
The move to insert the veteran point guard and the recently acquired forward paid off big time. As arguably the best coaching moves made by Brown since taking over for the Zen Master, the Lakers went on a hot streak hitting three after three and playing some lockdown defense on both Russell Westbrook and Kevin Durant.
With Durant and Westbrook taking a backseat with extremely poor shooting, the Lakers just couldn’t be stopped as they made the deficit disappear and forced overtime. Not only did the Lakers force overtime with some brilliant clutch shots by Kobe, but then they went into double overtime with neither willing to concede the loss.
Fortunately, the Lakers prevailed despite all the bad blood and countless storylines with a 114-106 victory in the second overtime. The Thunder may still be the best team in the league or at least in the West, but the Lakers showed their veteran savvy on Sunday with an impressive come-from-behind win.
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