Friday night’s Emirates NBA Cup match between the Los Angeles Lakers and Oklahoma City Thunder came down to the wire. The Lakers trailed by two points with under 30 seconds to go, but ultimately lost by eight due to some late-game execution errors. For the third time in the last six games, rookie Dalton Knecht was the Lakers’ leading scorer.
But the bigger issue wasn’t the fact that neither LeBron James nor Anthony Davis could muster more than 20 points. It was the turnover margin — and by extension, the points off of turnovers margin — that did the Lakers in.