SGA stars as NBA-leading Thunder top Lakers after Doncic ejection

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Shai Gilgeous-Alexander scored 42 points, and the Oklahoma City Thunder beat the Los Angeles Lakers, 136-120, on Tuesday night, April 8, after Luka Doncic was ejected.

Doncic scored 23 points before leaving the game in the fourth quarter following his second technical foul. The Thunder outscored the Lakers 29-12 the rest of the way.

Jalen Williams added 26 points for the Thunder, who bounced back from a 126-99 loss to the Lakers on Sunday.

Oklahoma City (65-14) inched closer to clinching the best record in the league and homecourt advantage throughout the playoffs. The Thunder have a two-game lead on the Cleveland Cavaliers with three games remaining. The team set a single-season franchise record for victories, surpassing the 1995-96 Seattle squad that went 64-18.

LeBron James scored 28 points and Austin Reaves added 24 for the Lakers.

Los Angeles is at Dallas on Wednesday in Doncic’s first game against the Mavericks since being traded to the Lakers for Anthony Davis on Feb. 2.

The Thunder led 80-72 at halftime after shooting 64.7% from the field. It matched the fourth-highest point total for an Oklahoma City team in a half.

The Lakers rallied, and a deep 3-pointer by Doncic put the Lakers ahead 88-86 with about five minutes left in the third. The Lakers took a 98-97 lead into the fourth.

Meanwhile, Giannis Antetokounmpo had 23 points, 13 rebounds and 10 assists for his third straight triple-double as the Milwaukee Bucks erased a 24-point, fourth-quarter deficit to beat the Minnesota Timberwolves, 110-103.

Milwaukee won its fifth straight and snapped Minnesota’s five-game winning streak by producing the Bucks’ biggest fourth-quarter comeback since at least 1996-97, when the NBA began tracking play-by-play data. The Bucks had lost the last 276 regular-season or playoff games in which they had fallen behind by at least 20 points in the fourth quarter.

After trailing 95-71 with less than 10 minutes left, Milwaukee scored 23 straight points and eventually tied it 97-all on AJ Green’s 3-pointer with 3:36 left.

On the Timberwolves’ next possession, Milwaukee’s Kevin Porter Jr. and Minnesota’s Rudy Gobert got in a skirmish that resulted in technical fouls for both players. Milwaukee’s Gary Trent Jr., who was jawing at Gobert at the end of the confrontation, got an additional technical foul.

In New York, Kristaps Porzingis made a tiebreaking 3-pointer with 40 seconds left in overtime after Jayson Tatum’s 3-pointer with 2.9 seconds remaining forced the extra period, and the Boston Celtics completed a season sweep of the Knicks with a 119-117 victory.

Porzingis matched his season high with 34 points on his 30-footer. Tatum added 32 points as the Celtics extended their road winning streak to nine and improved to 33-7 away from Boston.

They had routed the Knicks by 23, 27 and 13 in the three previous meetings, but needed to fight beyond 48 minutes for this one.

In North Carolina, Ja Morant had 28 points, five rebounds and eight assists as the Memphis Grizzlies beat the Charlotte Hornets, 124-100.

Memphis guard Jaylen Wells broke his right wrist on a hard fall on his arm and head and was taken from the court on a stretcher and transported to a hospital after he made a fast-break dunk and had a midair collision with Charlotte’s K.J. Simpson. Wells, who was starting his 74th game, was inadvertently undercut by Simpson from behind. Wells was down for eight minutes before being lifted onto the stretcher with his head strapped in to restrict motion. Officials called a Flagrant 2 foul on Simpson, who was automatically ejected.