LeBron James Discusses Lakers’ Rebounding & Turnover Struggles   

The Los Angeles Lakers suffered their fourth loss in five games on Friday night, falling to the Oklahoma City Thunder 101-93. The Lakers held tough with the Western Conference’s No. 1 seed for most of the game, but the Thunder pulled away at the end. It was a poor performance for both LeBron James and Anthony Davis, who both once again failed to cross the 20-point threshold But the real difference-maker in the game for the Thunder was offensive rebounds and points off turnovers. Oklahoma City pulled in 15 offensive rebounds compared to the Lakers’ eight. That is seven extra possessions won by the Thunder that L.A. did not get. Similarly, the Lakers turned the ball over 17 times compared to 10. OKC scored 20 points off of those turnovers while the Lakers only scored five.

It’s little things that often spell the difference between wins and losses for the elite teams in the league, and LeBron knows that must be improved upon quickly.

“Well, I mean, when you’re shading and helping a lot, especially against Shai [Gilgeous-Alexander] and J Dub, they have a numbers game on offensive rebounding, but we got to do a better job of trying to clean glass and do a much better job of not turning the ball over as much,” James said.

Despite the losing effort, LeBron thinks the Lakers actually have been playing better on the defensive end.