The Oklahoma City Thunder have lost just three games since March 1, with two of those defeats coming at the end of the regular season when they rested all their starters. The idea of the Los Angeles Lakers beating them four times over a period of two weeks in a playoff series seems extremely far-fetched.
But Jake LaRavia has declared that his teammates don’t “fear” the Thunder even though they respect the reigning NBA champions.
“The thing is, when you’re coming into any game, regular season or playoffs, you can respect the team, but you can’t fear them,” LaRavia said, via LakersNation.
“You can’t come into the game fearing the opponent. You’re just going to come in and get punked. We respect how good this team is, but our goal is to win. Win the games and win the series. So our mindset stays the same when it comes to that.”
Lakers Try to Overcome Odds Again
It’s worth noting that the Lakers entered their series against the Houston Rockets as +550 underdogs, given the injury uncertainty surrounding Austin Reaves and Luka Doncic. Yet, LeBron James and Co. overcame the odds to prevail in six games.
The Thunder are obviously a notch above the Rockets, but LaRavia thinks the underdog label favors him and his teammates, whom nobody expects to win.
“A lot of us on this team have been underdogs in life, especially in our journey with basketball,” said LaRavia, who spent several years in the G League after landing with the Memphis Grizzlies in 2022.
“It’s not really something we look at or we really care about. We’re coming in to compete. We’re coming in to win a series,” he added of the Lakers being the underdogs.
Jake LaRavia: A Key Rotational Piece
LaRavia, who signed with the Lakers as a free agent last offseason, has fared well in his role as a 3-and-D player for JJ Redick’s team. In the six-game series against the Rockets, he held Reed Sheppard (37.5%) and Amen Thompson (25%) to sub-40% shooting as the primary defender and was a +13 on the floor in his 90 minutes.
In the regular season, the 24-year-old LaRavia was the only Laker to play all 82 games. As a starter in 43 games, he averaged 9.7 points and 4.5 rebounds. However, in four games versus the Thunder, he shot less than 26% from the field and 19% from three and was a -13 on the floor. Despite those struggles, LaRavia has predicted “a great series” between the top-seeded Thunder and fourth-seeded Lakers.
“Very talented, their entire roster,” LaRavia said of the OKC Thunder.
“There was a lot of times during the season where they had guys in and out of the rotation and they just have a lot of players that can come in and just go hoop for them. Obviously they’re very physical. Defensively, they just play very well on-ball, off-ball. Collectively, they just got a lot of talented pieces so it should be a great series.”
Lakers vs. Thunder Game 1 tips off at 8:30 p.m. ET on Tuesday.
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