Courtside chess: Inside the Lakers' defensive plans to slow Shai Gilgeous-Alexander — and give themselves a puncher's chance

OKLAHOMA CITY — Lakers head coach JJ Redick could only look toward the sky midway through the third quarter, uttering a slew of words not suitable for a national broadcast as he watched his defense momentarily break down, resulting in a wide-open Lu Dort triple and a Cason Wallace point-blank layup. A deficit that had been as small as four points in the second half had ballooned to double digits in the span of two minutes, a less-than-ideal swing against the best team in basketball. But Redick’s frustration, while temporarily fixated on the Lakers’ mistakes, wasn’t solely attributed to them.

Tuesday night was a night rooted in opportunity cost, a successful strategy in slowing down superstar guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander — which ultimately is their best path to an upset — but also a display of Los Angeles’ offensive woes, sponsored by a combined 7-of-31 shooting night from Austin Reaves and Marcus Smart. “You’re playing the world champs, your margin for error in terms of mistakes is not that high,” Redick said following the Lakers’ 108-90 loss in Game 1 of the second-round series. “You can make mistakes — basketball is a game full of mistakes — but just too many tonight.

But there were some good things, we held Shai under 20 and the guys played hard. Just gotta do a better job of execution, which comes down to attention to detail. We’ll clean things up and be better.

” Gilgeous-Alexander’s output is buried within Redick’s eulogy but considering the reigning regular-season and Finals MVP’s impact on Oklahoma City’s halfcourt execution, it’s worth exponentially more than a passing statement. Gilgeous-Alexander is the best scorer in basketball on the most dangerous team in the league. A plethora of defenses have tried to stop or slow him down and many have failed.