The Los Angeles Lakers came into the Western Conference Finals with a clear blueprint: disrupt Oklahoma City’s fluid offense by taking the ball out of Shai Gilgeous-Alexander’s hands and force someone else to beat them.
For stretches throughout the series, it worked.
Shai wasn’t able to dictate the game as freely as he normally does offensively. The game felt slower, more deliberate, more disjointed than Thunder basketball typically looks. It was the kind of defensive game plan teams across the league spent the entire season trying to perfect against Oklahoma City.
Overall, it didn’t matter.
Despite disrupting OKC’s rhythm, the Lakers’ blueprint resulted in little more than Shai averaging seven fewer points than his regular-season average.
What Los Angeles failed to account for, however, was the thing standing between their master plan and actual success: the Thunder themselves.
This series ultimately confirmed what Oklahoma City has quietly become over the past year, a team built to absorb pressure, redistribute responsibility based on circumstance, and respond in waves.
The first wave, or better yet, the tsunami, was Ajay Mitchell.
Mitchell was likely the biggest surprise of the series for the Lakers because, quite frankly, he overachieved. Stepping in for and essentially replacing Jalen Williams for the series was never supposed to look like this. He was not expected to replicate Williams’ production. He was simply expected to be a competent replacement.
That most certainly was not the case.
The 23-year-old, Belgium-born second-year guard, in the middle of his first meaningful playoff run, averaged 22.5 points, 6.0 assists, and 1.8 steals per game while shooting 56 percent from the field.
For reference, Williams averaged 21.4 points, 5.5 rebounds, 4.8 assists, and 1.4 steals per game on 45 percent shooting during last season’s championship run.
Mitchell was an anomaly. He played aggressively, but with remarkable control in that aggression. “Tactful” may feel like an unusual adjective in this context, but it fits. He consistently toed the line between functioning beside Shai in a support role, defending, facilitating, filling gaps offensively, especially when Gilgeous-Alexander was bottled up, and shifting into a score-first mentality while leading bench units.
Those are the exact dual responsibilities Williams has mastered over the course of his All-Star ascent.
Mitchell did much of his damage during the non-Shai minutes, particularly at the start of the second and fourth quarters, when coach Mark Daigneault routinely staggers Gilgeous-Alexander’s rest.
Ajay scored 34 of his 90 total points in the series during those stretches.
Those weren’t empty production numbers. They elevated him from the category of “productive role player” into something much more consequential: a focal point the Lakers suddenly had to account for, but ultimately lacked the personnel or flexibility to contain.
Without those non-Shai minutes, Mitchell’s production aligns far more closely with his 14-point regular-season average. Instead, he became one of the defining offensive forces of the series.
Mitchell, however, was far from the only role player who rose to the occasion.
In the absence of Williams and amid Los Angeles’ commitment to neutralizing Shai, it felt as though the entire roster collectively shifted upward.
Jared McCain, the second half of what has become he and Ajay’s “Light Twin” coalition, also overachieved in his first playoff run, averaging 11.5 points per game. Roughly one-third of his scoring came during non-Shai minutes as well.
Chet Holmgren, Isaiah Hartenstein, Lu Dort, Cason Wallace, Isaiah Joe, and Alex Caruso were also integral to Oklahoma City cruising to its second consecutive playoff sweep.
OKC’s bench averaged 37.8 points per game and outscored Los Angeles’ bench 151-89 over the course of the series.
Thunder fans, and perhaps NBA fans more broadly, need to understand one important reality: what Oklahoma City is doing is not normal.
It is not normal for a franchise to reach the Western Conference Finals in one-third of the seasons it has existed. It is not normal for a playoff team to dismantle another contender, one many viewed as a top-four team in basketball, this convincingly while its best player operates below his usual offensive standard and its second option remains sidelined.
What Oklahoma City has built is rare.
And while the Lakers’ game plan was intelligent, disciplined, and thoughtful, it exposed an even larger question for whoever comes next, whether it be the San Antonio Spurs or the Minnesota Timberwolves:
How do you replicate what the Lakers did to Shai while also containing Ajay Mitchell and Oklahoma City’s depth?
And if Jalen Williams returns?
How exactly are you supposed to stop all of it?
We’ll find out soon enough.
