Chet Holmgren and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander each scored 22 points as the Oklahoma City Thunder beat the Los Angeles Lakers 125-107 on Thursday, taking a 2-0 lead in their Western Conference second-round series.
The Thunder remain unbeaten in the postseason as the best-of-seven series shifts to Los Angeles for Game 3 on Saturday.
Oklahoma City still controlled the night despite Gilgeous-Alexander spending much of it in foul trouble, which limited him to 28 minutes.
“I’ve got the utmost confidence in our whole team,” Thunder coach Mark Daigneault said of playing without Gilgeous-Alexander. “We’ve shown that during the year. We’ve tried to train that muscle, and we’ve got guys that are competitors. They see the challenges of the game as opportunities, and they attack them.”
Early in the third quarter, Gilgeous-Alexander was called for a flagrant 1 offensive foul while being guarded by Austin Reaves.
He went to the bench with four fouls as the Lakers briefly went up by five.
But even without Gilgeous-Alexander, the Thunder responded with a 25-7 run to take a 13-point lead late in the quarter.
“Guys stepped in and made confident plays up and down,” Daigneault said.
The surge included Jaylin Williams’ four-point play that put Oklahoma City ahead 85-74 with less than three minutes left in the third. Holmgren started the sequence by stripping the ball from Reaves under the basket at the other end.
The Thunder scored 11 points off seven Lakers turnovers in the third quarter and finished with 26 points off 21 turnovers overall.
The Lakers cut the deficit to five early in the fourth quarter, but Holmgren answered with five straight points to push the lead back into double digits.
About four minutes into the fourth, Gilgeous-Alexander and LeBron James went down on the same play after Gilgeous-Alexander was fouled by Reaves.
James, going for a block from the backside, tried to leap over Gilgeous-Alexander along the baseline but made contact with the Thunder star.
Both players remained on the floor briefly, with James holding his right wrist and Gilgeous-Alexander in visible discomfort.
They both stayed in the game.
Reaves, who shot 3 of 16 in Game 1, responded with a game-high 31 points on 10-of-16 shooting.
“I thought he did a good job touching the paint,” Lakers coach JJ Redick said. “Those touch shots were there tonight, got some good looks from three. He played a solid game.”
James added 23 points for the Lakers, who shot 50% from the field.
Oklahoma City’s Ajay Mitchell scored 20 points. Holmgren finished 7 of 11 from the field with nine rebounds, four steals and two blocks.
Jared McCain added 18 points off the bench for the Thunder, whose reserves outscored the Lakers’ bench 48-20.
