Lakers Show Heart But Can't Hold Late Lead
The Thunder Have Not Lost A Playoff Game In 2012 (6-0)
Now that’s what I call a game.
All the drama and heart you would expect to see in an NBA Playoff match was on display in Oklahoma City for Wednesday’s Game 2. It was a tight one all the way up to the last seconds when James Harden’s interception of a wayward lob from Metta World Peace ended the game at 77-75.
The Lakers executed their game plan to near-perfection as they held the explosive Thunder to under 80 points (OKC scored 119 in Game 1) but L.A. couldn’t score in the last 2:08 and watched their late lead evaporate behind a 9-0 Thunder run.
Kobe Bryant was a lowly 9-25 shooting and 0-6 from the 3-point line, which is perhaps why The Lakers went to bench player Steve Blake for the go-ahead 3-point attempt with 3.9 seconds remaining. Blake missed (had been only 1-5 on 3′s) and Oklahoma City was able to complete the comeback.
L.A.’s bigs played hard and put up good numbers but the poor late-game shooting of Kobe Bryant and a series of Thunder defensive stops in crunch time rendered The Laker’s efforts moot. Kobe and crew will be forced to, again, try and make adjustments against a team who no one has been able to beat this post-season.
The series heads to Los Angeles for Game 3 Friday, 10:30 pm ET.
Brandon J. Rompa
Brandon Rompa is a writer and musician from Minneapolis, MN. He began writing album reviews and current-event music articles for his college paper at Winona State University in 2007 and has continued to pursue the craft in his leisure time since, hoping to share his love of recorded music, present and past, in a conversational and relatable manner.
Email Brandon at brandonrompa@secretlaboratory.org
