Without outright saying so, Lakers coach JJ Redick has been hesitant to compare this year’s version of his team to last year’s.
Although there’s continuity on the roster, with nine players who ended last season with the Lakers on this year’s team, important changes were made with the offseason additions of Marcus Smart, Deandre Ayton and Jake LaRavia, in addition to the pre-trade deadline addition of Luke Kennard.
There’s also been the continued emergence of Austin Reaves and improved fitness from Luka Dončić, who’s playing his best basketball as a Laker, as the team has found the ideal pecking order for its star players in Dončić, Reaves and LeBron James.
Lakers’ Luka Dončić shoots a free throw against the Cavaliers, March 31 at Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles. NBAE via Getty Images And that’s before getting into the differences in the other 29 teams in the league, and how that impacts how the Lakers are evaluated.
But there are outlines of parallels that are easy to see between last year and this year, with one of them being the challenges the Lakers are going to face in the next week.
Last season, as they made their playoff push, they made a trip to Oklahoma City in early April for a pair of games against the league-leading Thunder in one of their biggest tests of the regular season before the playoffs started in a few a couple of weeks.
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander of the Thunder grins during the game against the Pistons, March 30 in Oklahoma City. NBAE via Getty Images And what’s coming up for the Lakers after beating the Cavaliers on Tuesday?
A matchup against the West-leading Thunder on Thursday in Oklahoma City in the first two of games across six days against the defending NBA champions, with another matchup against the Thunder on April 7 at Crypto.com Arena sandwiched around playing the Mavericks in Dallas on Sunday.
But if there’s anything to learn from the last time the Lakers were in the position, it’s this: How the Lakers perform against the Thunder won’t define their season more than the last four-and-a-half weeks have.
Last season, the Lakers went into Paycom Center and handed the eventual champions their worst loss of the regular season. And then two nights later, they had a one-point lead in the fourth quarter before Dončić was ejected from the game after picking up his second technical foul of the game.
But those two games, along with the Lakers’ third-place finish in the Western Conference, had many believing they had as good as a shot as any other team of compeiting against the Thunder in the postseason.
And then the playoffs started, and quickly ended for the Lakers, who lost to the Timberwolves in five games, showing they weren’t truly contenders.
Because as good as they played against the Thunder, it didn’t make up for the flaws that were evident before and after those matchups – evident by the fact they finished No. 15 in net rating (17th in offense and defense) post-All-Star break last season.
“I said this at the beginning of the year to my staff, and I probably said it publicly, ‘I feel like our ceiling is higher with this team [compared to last year]’,” Redick said.
And the Lakers have shown over the last few weeks how high their ceiling is this year – and how much higher it is than last year.
They’ve gone 17–5 since the All-Star break, including winning 16 of their last 18 games that included a nine-game winning streak with victories over some of the league’s other top teams in the Knicks, Timberwolves, Nuggets and Rockets (twice).
The Lakers came out of Tuesday’s win over the Cavaliers ranked No. 3 in offensive rating and 13th in defense since the break, showing signs that their level of play is more sustainable than their stronger segments of last season.
“Where our group has been really good, starting post-first-Indiana game [on March 6], was just really putting emphasis on building our playoff mentality,” Redick said. “Understanding the importance of every game, every possession. Trying to find more consistency within the game and building those habits at a really high level. It’s more about just us continuing to build that mentality.”
And the Thunder will test that more than any other opponent the Lakers have played.
They not only have the league’s best record at 60–16, but are one of the few teams who’ve been better than the Lakers since the break, with reigning MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander at the helm of their success.
“They’re great on both sides of the ball,” Redick said. “They’re gonna make you work for things defensively because of how physical they are. They just do a great job of driving. You really have to do your best to keep them outta the paint, have you to do your best to be square of the ball. They just are really good at what they do. And they’ve been doing that now for five years. And they know all the nuances. They know all the tricks. They all know the timing of everything. They’re just a tough team to guard.”
Should the matchups against the Thunder influence the MVP race and Dončić’s potential candidacy? Absolutely.
Will the Lakers learn lessons about themselves regardless of the results? Of course.
But those games won’t define their season — that stretch has already happened.
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