Denver beat the Lakers in Los Angeles Tuesday night, forcing a sixth game in that first-round series, but this is the weird aspect of it:

The Lakers were privately seething after seeing the Nuggets use a laptop computer in their huddle during a 20-second timeout with 19.9 seconds left to play.

The computer apparently belonged to an assistant coach sitting behind the bench with it. NBA rules forbid the use of such devices in the huddle, which won’t change the final score but can carry a hefty fine of up to $250,000.

Anyone know if the Staples Center has free Wi-Fi?

“I just want this game to end before someone dies,” tweeted @TheLostOgle with about four minutes left, and shortly thereafter, Kobe Bryant and Serge Ibaka spilled into the first row trying to snag a loose ball. That’s the kind of day it was, starting with 1:37 left in the first half, when Metta World Peace, belying his placid surname, threw an elbow at James Harden’s head. Harden went to the locker room to be checked for concussion; Peace-y went to the locker room with an ejection and a Flagrant Two. The Thunder, irked, ran up the score over the next fifteen minutes, eventually taking an 18-point lead; but the Lakers gradually whittled it away and finally took control in the waning moments on back-to-back Kobe treys. Russell Westbrook dropped a couple of free throws to tie it at 91, and overtime ensued. Four minutes and forty-five seconds later, it was still tied, 97-all, and overtime continued; the Thunder couldn’t buy a bucket in the waning moments, and the Lakers finally won one against OKC, 114-106.

“Steve Blake,” said radio guy Matt Pinto, “has been an influential influence.” Well, yeah; he contributed three treys, all coming in the fourth quarter or in overtime, and became something of the go-to guy when Thabo Sefolosha had Bryant in a box. With Andrew Bynum phoning it in, bigness was contributed by Pau Gasol (20 points, 14 rebounds) and Jordan Hill (14 and 15). L.A. was utterly dominant on the boards (67-54, 25-14 offensive). But nobody is likely to be impressed with the offense of either club: the Lakers put up 106 shots and missed 65, the Thunder sent up 101 and missed 64. (OKC was slightly better than L.A. beyond the arc, if 8 of 24 is actually better, other than in sheer percentage points, than 5 of 16.)

Batman and Robin again seemed to be working at cross purposes: yeah, they got 49 points between them — Kevin Durant 35, Westbrook 14 — but they went a combined 14-56 from the floor. That’s 25 percent, boys and girls. You have to figure Harden would have made some of these, had he been able to play in the second half. If there’s an upside, it’s that Durant will sneak ahead of Bryant in PPG by a fraction of a point. At least OKC has regained its swag at the free-throw line, nailing 24 of 28. (The Lakers hit 27 of 40.)

So the likely #3 seed wins one against the almost-certain #2 seed. The people I feel for are the Staples Center crew; after this thing ran well past all understanding, they have to de-Lakerfy the joint to make ready for Hornets/Clippers in a few hours. Let James Harden be well — and let Ron Artest (I can’t say “World Peace” with a straight face) be thrown to the NBA’s regulatory hounds. It’s time to go home.

Any night Pau Gasol gets posterized has to be a good night, and when Kevin Durant does it — well, you can see where this is going. The Lakers had a twelve-point lead after one, but the Thunder slowly wore it away — and then speeded up. In the third, OKC got the lead, and in the fourth, they were up as many as 19. This doesn’t sit well in Los Angeles, of course, and the Lakers repeatedly came back to within seven, but that’s as close as they’d get, the Thunder ultimately prevailing 102-93.

Kobe Bryant and Thabo Sefolosha will never be BFFs, so Thabo spent most of his time keeping Kobe out of his comfort zone. The Thunder division of labor was interesting: Russell Westbrook did the slam-dunking, while KD reeled in the rebounds (and, per Marv Albert, served up one “facial”). And you just knew Lakers castoff Derek Fisher would be getting big minutes: he played 16 and scored 7. But nobody had bigger minutes than Westbrook, who played 18 minutes in the first half and the entire second half, finishing with 36 points. Durant, who couldn’t buy a bucket in the first quarter, reestablished commerce quickly enough, with a 21-point/11-rebound double-double. And what’s this? Kendrick Perkins with 12 points? Yea, verily: 5 of 9 from the floor.

Your telltale statistic: yes, Kobe got 23 points. But 8 were from the line; from the floor he went 7-25. Andrew Bynum was his solid self, knocking down 25, but the Lakers were otherwise hard up for offense, shooting under 42 percent. (Gasol had 13 points; the L. A. bench in aggregate had only 16.) Metta World Peace managed to get three of six treys to fall, two in the fourth quarter; the rest of the team went 1-5 from outside.

So it’s 2-0 against the Lakers, with one left to play, the last away game of the season. That, we can worry about later. For now, or for Sunday anyway, the Bulls must be fought.

They may not even be the best team in L.A. anymore, let alone the West, but the Lakers still have mystique on their side. The Thunder, however, have learned to ignore such considerations, and Loud City was happy to help sweep Kobe Bryant and friends off the premises, 100-85.

Dealing with Kobe is always a problem, and Scott Brooks chose to address it by having James Harden stick to him like Fifties cellophane; Bryant got his 24 points, but it took him 24 shots to get it. The tall guys — Andrew Bynum and Pau Gasol — were their usual efficient selves, though seldom at the same time. But the Lakers’ plight can be summed up in a single incident: inside the 2:00 mark, a brief altercation broke out, and noted pacifist Metta World Peace got T’d up.

Kevin Durant? Thirty-three points on 22 shots. And if Bynum got a double-double, which he did, well, so did Serge Ibaka, and Ibaka was +17 for the night, higher than anyone except KD. The Thunder had a small edge in rebounding (44-41), a bigger one in taking the ball away (nine blocks and seven steals, versus two and five), and perhaps the biggest in bench scoring (28-11; Harden had 16 all by his lonesome). Russell Westbrook, who you’ll remember is Not Really A Point Guard, had half a dozen dimes tonight, more than anyone else except, um, Kevin Durant.

But best of all, it was the Lakers. Everyone loves to beat the Lakers. They have tradition, they have history, and for the moment they have second place in the Pacific.

The All-Star break now ensues.

The Artest Soon To Be Formerly Known As Ron isn’t, just yet:

Ron Artest’s well-publicized plan to change his name ran into the legal equivalent of a red light Friday.

His petition to legally change his name from Ronald William Artest Jr. to Metta World Peace was delayed by a Los Angeles court commissioner because of some outstanding traffic warrants.

The Lakers forward wasn’t in court Friday. But Artest gets another opportunity to swap names at a Sept. 16 court date — provided he takes care of his tickets.

Would that the NBA lockout could be so easily solved.

The Sacramento Kings, next year, will be called — the Sacramento Kings:

The Sacramento Kings will remain in town for at least one more season to give Mayor Kevin Johnson a chance to follow through on his promise of a new arena.

The Kings had been considering a move to Anaheim, Calif., after several failed efforts to build a new arena in Sacramento, but they decided to give Johnson one more shot.

“The mayor of Sacramento has told the NBA relocation committee that he will have a plan for a new arena within a year,” co-owner Joe Maloof said Monday. “If not, the team will be relocated to another city.”

State government has no money, but announced they’d step up to help:

Four California lawmakers, including the leader of the state Senate, sent a letter to NBA Commissioner David Stern last week pledging to work with local leaders over the next year to try to build a sports and performing arts complex to replace the Kings’ outdated arena.

Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, a Democrat from Sacramento, said he would use his clout to make sure his district gets its share of state bond money that could go to build the complex.

Personally, I think Lakers owner Jerry Buss ought to kick in a few million: the longer he can keep the Kings from moving to Anaheim, the more his cable-TV contract with Time Warner will be worth.

The early-on Telltale Statistic was easy: the Lakers had turned the ball over exactly once in 36 minutes. Despite that, the defending champs trailed through the first half and much of the third quarter; they fought back to a small lead. But the Thunder weren’t having any: they forced Los Angeles into nine turnovers in that fourth quarter, regained the lead within the three-mark, and closed out the Lakers on a 17-2 run. The final was a startling 120-106, with OKC holding L. A. to 16 points in that final frame. It was the Thunder’s first win ever on the Lakers’ home court.

There was only one double-double all night, and Andrew Bynum got it: 12 points, 13 rebounds. Kobe Bryant was up to speed, with 31 points, and Pau Gasol had 26 more; but at the end, none of those guys were able to get through a stifling Thunder defense.

Besides, Kevin Durant had 31 tonight, and it took him only 15 shots to get it. (Bryant took 19.) Russell Westbrook amped up the ferocity tonight and finished with 26. Both Serge Ibaka and James Harden landed in double figures. And here’s a couple of remarkable numbers: 55.6 percent from the floor, 91.4 percent from the stripe.

The main value of this game, though, is psychological: a barrier broken through once and for all. There was a tendency to see the Lakers as somehow otherworldly, always somehow destined to prevail. But the Lakers had lost four in a row coming in, and while a 55-25 record is certainly nothing to sneer at, the Thunder are now 54-26 and demonstrably capable of knocking on their door. Hard.

Will there be a letdown tomorrow night against the Almost-Out-Of-Sacramento Kings? Ask me in 25 hours.

It’s hard to say what was more disheartening: the Lakers grinding out a 90-87 win at the New Round Barn, or the robocalls on behalf of various City Council candidates during the second half. (Brad Henry, in particular, should farging well know better than that.) The Thunder offense, which hoovered up 56 points in the first half, couldn’t manage but 31 in the second, and two quite-reasonable three-point attempts in the last ten seconds failed to drop.

In the main, it’s a story you’ve heard before: the youngsters burn themselves out quickly, and the veterans clean up the mess. Five points up at the half, OKC found itself going nowhere in the third quarter, opening the door for Los Angeles. Both Pau Gasol and Andrew Bynum were able to post double-doubles, and if Kobe Bryant isn’t quite the Kobe of old, the Kobe of now is still pretty darned impressive. (It was Bryant’s fadeaway just inside the one-minute mark that put the Lakers up three.) None of Phil Jackson’s crew played more than 37 minutes, which suggests a lack of urgency that only a Zen master like Jackson can pull off.

Scott Brooks stuck to his regular rotation, and it’s easy to say that yeah, maybe he should have let the new guys play, but I suspect the results would have been just about the same. Apart from a rather appalling number of turnovers — 19 of ‘em — the Thunder didn’t do a whole lot wrong. When your shooting percentage drops from better than 60 to less than 45 over the space of 24 minutes, though, you’re doing something wrong. Russell Westbrook had 17 points in the first half, but finished with only 22. Kevin Durant went 8-19 from the floor to collect 21 points. Serge Ibaka got more boards — thirteen — than anyone. And Thabo Sefolosha not only kept Kobe largely at bay, he picked up 10 points. But somehow, the machine ground to a halt in the third quarter, and it never did quite come back to life.

So February ends at 6-5, which isn’t that bad, but which isn’t that good either. March beckons with sixteen games, and perhaps fortunately for the Thunder, the first half of it is loaded with games against the East. Then again, the Pacers, who arrive in the city on Wednesday, aren’t just going to roll over and die.

The Lakers and the Thunder had two things in common: they led their respective divisions, and they’d both suffered embarrassing losses to the not-all-that-lowly Clippers. But when they met at the Staples Center, what you saw were the differences: the wily veterans versus the earnest kids, the perimeter shooters (L. A. went 7-14 from beyond the arc) versus the perimeter non-shooters (OKC made two of 22). And while things never got completely out of reach until the very end, the Thunder never clamped down the way they needed to, and the Lakers held on for the 101-94 win.

Derek Fisher was the secret weapon: a season-high 15 points, including two of three treys, while both Kobe Bryant and Pau Gasol picked their usual twenty-plus and Andrew Bynum weighed in with a double-double. The Lakers were weak at the line, but not enough to matter.

The Thunder had double-doubles of their own: Russell Westbrook had 32 points and 12 boards; Serge Ibaka, 11 points and 10 boards. Rebounds were about even (Lakers 41, OKC 40). But L. A. got the long ball to fall half the time; the Thunder were hopeless from downtown, even from Kevin Durant, who shot 8-24 and dropped only one of eight treys. Credit the Laker D for forcing all those outside shots.

Wednesday at Denver. At least I won’t have to stay up so late.

And so a wholly-unexpected season ends in a highly-predictable manner: the Lakers get the final bucket with half a second left, Pau Gasol tipping in a Kobe Bryant miss, to win it 95-94 and finish off the Thunder, four games to two.

But what the hell. Six months ago, no one would have guessed this team would win even 40 regular-season games, let alone 50. To gripe at this point requires a degree of churlishness exceeding even my own.

Still, one stat in this last game bothers me greatly: the Thunder shot 36.5 percent (31 of 85). And somewhere in the brouhaha, Kevin Durant seemed to show signs of something I’ve not seen before: desperation. Kid Delicious hoisted twenty-three shots; only five dropped. He was his usual brilliant self at the stripe, sinking 14 of 15, but there are situations, and this was one of them, when one point at a time simply isn’t enough, even if you come up with 26.

And I am at least somewhat amused by the fact that the Lakers sent up 24 shots from downtown, way more than Phil Jackson would have you believe he finds acceptable — though you can bet he’s not going to complain about any of the twelve makes.

So score this one for age and (maybe a little) treachery — and Kobe, who rolled up 32 points, more than any three other Lakers combined. Say what you will, the man delivers when it counts.

Now when does summer camp start?

I don’t remember this in the Big Book O’ Basketball Quotes, but if it’s not there, it ought to be: “You can’t compensate for a lack of defense with a lack of offense.” If they need to illustrate this point, they can show the Staples Center scoreboard with 7:33 left in the first quarter: Los Angeles 14, Oklahoma City 1. The Thunder, evidently taking Pau Gasol’s “that’s all they’re going to get” prediction seriously, obligingly missed their first 13 shots; the Lakers shot upwards of 60 percent until the arrival of garbage time. The final was 111-87, which, noted radio guy Matt Pinto, qualified as a rout.

It’s tempting to blame the atmosphere, or the officiating, or whatever, but the fact is, for the most part the Thunder managed to stink up the joint, and the Lakers were quick to take advantage of every single waft. Gasol, who’d made the most noise, did the most damage: 25 points and 11 boards in less than half an hour.

Meanwhile, OKC shot a terrible 36.9 percent, although it was a lot worse than that early on. (The starters were 14 for 48, less than 30 percent.) The Lakers’ plan to put more pressure on Russell Westbrook worked pretty well: he got his 15 points and served up six dimes, but he also turned the ball over eight times.

On the upside, if you call that an upside, it was over with quick. Game 6 is Friday night at the Ford; you get no predictions from this corner.

Pointed observation from Daily Thunder proprietor Royce, posted at The Lost Ogle:

We used to welcome in Shreveport and Wichita for the postseason. Or the Redhawks maybe had the Nashville Sounds in a playoff series. Now, it’s the Los Angeles Lakers. Think about that for [a] second.

And if there’s anything more fun than playing the Lakers, it’s beating the Lakers. Blowing them out, in fact: 110-89. (Aside: The Lakers haven’t won in the Ford Center since the third of November.) At one point, the Thunder were up by twenty-nine.

You want more startling numbers? OKC outrebounded L.A., 50-43. And the Thunder took forty-eight foul shots, making 42 of them. (The Lakers made only 17 of 28.) The Thunder gave up only ten turnovers. And game high for Los Angeles? Not Kobe, but Pau Gasol and Andrew Bynum, each with 13. (Meanwhile, Thunder reserve point guard Eric Maynor had 13 points in a mere 19 minutes.)

“We might be able to beat ‘em twice out of six,” I said before the playoffs began. Well, we beat ‘em twice out of four. The series now goes back to L.A., where OKC has never won and the Sonics last scored a win in the spring of ’06. If the Thunder can pull off a win Tuesday night, they might as well start printing tickets for the second round.

How much more loud could Loud City be? And the answer is none. None more loud. And they had plenty of reasons to make noise: it was the first playoff game ever in the Big Breezy, and the Thunder, down a dozen at times, won it 101-96.

What, other than the hometown crowd, was different? Two things: OKC remembered how to rebound (53-39 over the Lakers), and Kevin Durant, some time in the third quarter, recovered some of his mojo, finishing with 29 points and 19 boards. But one thing didn’t change: L.A. can’t do a thing with Russell Westbrook, who had 27 points, eight rebounds, four assists and only two turnovers. And with James Harden back in form, the Thunder shot better from beyond the arc (8-19, 42.1 percent) than from within (33-80, 41.2 percent).

Kobe, being Kobe, got his 24 points. The Thunder made him work for it, though: 10 of 29 from the floor, and no free throws. The Lakers, in fact, took only 12 freebies all night, making ten. (The Thunder hit 27 of 34.) All five Laker starters came up with double figures, and Pau Gasol added 15 rebounds. L.A. peppered the air with the long ball, but only ten of 31 tries connected. (Derek Fisher was four-for-five; no one else came close.)

So there will be a Game 5, which will be in the Staples Center. The first order of business, though, is to win Game 4, which would insure a Game 6 right back here in Loud City. Which might even be louder.

Derek Fisher fouled out with a couple minutes left; Nick Collison followed shortly thereafter. The way things were going, I’m surprised they were the only two; this game was fairly fiercely fought, and actual baskets were at a premium. Both teams shot below 40 percent. The Lakers, however, wound up with the win, 95-92, after a back-and-forth final quarter.

While Kobe led the scoring parade (39), Pau Gasol arguably did the most damage, hitting eight of 14 for 25 points and reeling in 11 rebounds, including two free throws with seven seconds left to ice it away. And the Lakers enjoyed a 49-37 advantage on the boards, including 19 off the offensive glass to nail some second-chance points while the Thunder were one and done.

Still, OKC was never out of this one, and they reminded everyone of the fact on a regular basis, blocking 17 shots. (The Lakers denied only three.) Kevin Durant had a better night, but still not all that good: 32 points, 12-26 from the floor. Russell Westbrook might have done more if he’d had time, but he spent a lot of minutes sitting with foul trouble.

The series now moves to OKC. Will Loud City make a difference? If they have anything to say about it, they will.

Well, if anyone was counting on the Lakers being as lackadaisical in the playoffs as they were in the last couple of weeks of the regular season, they counted wrong: while they didn’t come up with a whole lot of offense, they did a decent job of keeping focused and keeping the Thunder out of the lane, posting an 87-79 win to go up 1-0 in the best-of-seven series.

I have to figure that the game plan was to make life miserable for Kevin Durant and let everything else fall where it may, and it appears the Phil Jackson hex may have worked: Durant managed 24 points, but it took him 24 shots and nine free throws to collect them. Meanwhile, Russell Westbrook glided to 23 points on 10-16 shooting. The Thunder shot only 40.3 percent, but then the Lakers hit only 41 percent.

L.A. never trailed in this one, so there really wasn’t much opportunity for Kobe Bryant to fire off his patented game-changing shot; still, he did bag 21 points to lead the Lakers, with double-doubles from Pau Gasol and the apparently-healed Andrew Bynum to seal the deal. And the Lakers weren’t afraid to get physical: they accumulated 27 fouls (six by Lamar Odom in a mere 26 minutes), and that’s just the ones that got called.

Game 2 is Tuesday night; the series moves to Oklahoma City on Thursday. If it’s going to come back to L.A. for Game 5, the Thunder are going to have to give off more Sultans of Swat vibe; this deer-in-headlights stuff isn’t going to work.

This morning, Royce at Daily Thunder made the following observation:

The Lakers don’t have a great bench with Shannon Brown, Jordan Farmar and Josh Powell, but it’s serviceable.

I think the service light must have kicked on: through three quarters, those three had zero points. (The only L.A. reserve to score through the first 36 minutes was D. J. Mbenga, with three.) At the time, it was Thunder 80, Lakers 47, and L.A. was shooting 32 percent; they didn’t nail so much as a single trey until two minutes into the fourth, when Farmar finally got one to fall during a 10-0 Lakers run and Phil Jackson opted to let his starters rest for tomorrow night against Houston. After that, the Laker bench earned their keep, pulling to within sixteen at the end, but 91-75 still seems a stout thrashing, especially since it was L.A.’s lowest point production of the season.

And what of Kobe? He hit four shots and three free throws, and turned the ball over nine times. Lamar Odom had a team-high 15 points.

Meanwhile, the Big Three were doing their thing — Kevin Durant 26, Russell Westbrook 23, Jeff Green 10 — and Nenad Krstić collected a double-double with 10 points and 10 boards. It wasn’t an enormous amount of offense, but it was more than enough on a night where defense was king and the Lakers were thoroughly jacked.

Now to manhandle the Blazers on Sunday.

Nets watch: New Jersey got its ninth win (and second in a row!), beating the Pistons 118-110. They’d have to lose all ten remaining games to tie with the 1972-’73 Sixers for Worst Ever. At this point, I have to believe they won’t.

Radio guy Matt Pinto seemed persuaded that the officiating crew at the Staples Center tonight had a strange form of tunnel vision: they could see all manner of fouls being committed by the Thunder, scarcely any by the Lakers. Scott Brooks, judging by his facial expressions, shared this belief. Whatever the truth of the matter, Nick Collison fouled out halfway through the fourth quarter, as did Kevin Durant with a minute and a half left. (Then again, Kobe Bryant played much of the last quarter with five fouls.)

The Thunder actually had a 61-54 lead at halftime, though the Lakers immediately ran off six points to start the third quarter, and outscored OKC by thirteen in those twelve minutes; the Thunder never quite made up the difference, closing to within one and ultimately falling by three, 111-108.

Scott Brooks played only eight men, five of which landed in double figures; Russell Westbrook was three boards short of a triple-double, reeling in 21 points and serving up 13 dimes. Sixteen from each of the swingmen: Thabo Sefolosha and James Harden. (Harden, in fact, ran the point in Westbrook’s absence.) And Serge Ibaka pulled down 14 boards to go with 8 points. KD departed with 30.

All five Los Angeles starters wound up in double figures, led (of course) by Kobe, who had 40. The Lakers took 39 free throws, making 32; the Thunder were 20-24 from the stripe. The Thunder actually outshot the Lakers from the floor, 46.6 to 44.4 percent, and made six of 13 treys (L. A. had 7 of 18.)

So it wasn’t an embarrassment, but it was still a loss, and there are Suns waiting in Phoenix.

That’s really the story of Oklahoma City vs. Los Angeles tonight: early in the first quarter, the Lakers put together an 18-0 run, and the Thunder never got within double digits after that. So it didn’t matter so much that the league champions weren’t incredibly impressive overall: they didn’t have to be. Nine of ten starters were gone with six minutes left — Russell Westbrook was the last one on the floor — and the reserves mopped it up, the Lakers collecting a 101-85 win when it was all over.

L.A.’s front line was decently effective: Kobe Bryant led all scorers with 26, Andrew Bynum was right behind at 25, and the nicely-healed Pau Gasol recorded 15. Still, the Lakers didn’t shoot so well, hitting 40.4 percent and only two of 14 treys.

With the exception of that first-quarter run, the Thunder played sort-of-adequate defense, blocking 15 shots and outrebounding the Lakers 51-49. But they couldn’t shoot either, managing only 37.2 percent from the floor. Twenty-three treys were tried, but only three were made; James Harden missed ten of them all by himself yet still scored 10 points. Serge Ibaka earned his first double-double, with 11 points and 13 rebounds. Kevin Durant, who sat early with foul trouble, played only 23 minutes, scoring 19.

Two more obstacles this week: the Jazz, at Salt Lake City on Tuesday, only the second time the Thunder has faced a division foe this season, and back home on Friday to meet the better-than-anyone-expected Milwaukee Bucks in front of an actual national TV audience (ESPN). Here’s hoping we get to show off a bit.

Sports Illustrated’s Chris Mannix had the Thunder #12 in his Power Ratings Monday, four behind the Lakers. At the time, I thought he was kidding.

Then the Lakers showed up at the Ford and ran off the first nine points. Things looked grim. But OKC fought back, down only one at the half, and after 48 minutes the game was tied at 90. What did not happen: the return of Kevin Durant’s mojo. Kid Delicious had knocked down 28 points in three quarters, which was heartening, but he went scoreless in those last 17 minutes, and L. A. took advantage of his silence to squeak by with a 101-98 win.

One thing about the Lakers: their legendary depth, well, isn’t, at least not this year. Phil Jackson sent up six reserves, who scored all of six points, and Josh Powell had four of them. All the starters except Derek Fisher put in way over 40 minutes out of a possible 53. They made the numbers — Kobe turned in a 31-point night, and both Andrew Bynum and Ron Artest broke into the twenties — but they couldn’t have gone on too much longer, Bynum and Bryant each committing five fouls.

Big Poet Etan Thomas was a major factor in keeping the Lakers bottled up: he played nearly 35 minutes, scored nine points, blocked three shots and hauled in 11 rebounds, more production than the entire L. A. bench. (James Harden also scored nine.) Jeff Green rattled home 18 points, with Thabo Sefolosha and Russell Westbrook recording 12 each. Assists were back up to par, OKC out-diming L. A. 23-19; rebounds were about even.

So my apologies to Chris Mannix. On this night, anyway, the Thunder were almost as good as the Lakers. And it’s not like we’ll never see them again.

Off to Houston on Friday night, followed by a single home game (the Magic on Sunday) and a three-game road trip. It would be nice to finish that stretch at 5-4 or even 6-3, but it’s gonna take some work — and a bit more mojo.

Which is what the Lakers do: they’ve won 56 of 70 games, which is a hearty .800 percentage. They jumped on the Thunder early, taking a 37-20 lead after the first quarter, and it was never very close after that, though Oklahoma City did manage to keep Kobe Bryant under 20 points — barely. The final: 107-89.

Bryant finished with only 19, but he did work some serious defensive moves, scoring two blocks and four steals. (L.A. had 10 steals in all.) Six Lakers scored in double figures, and Pau Gasol got the game’s only double-double: 14 points, 14 boards. Los Angeles shot 50 percent and missed only one of 17 free throws.

OKC also had six in double figures, but they were all 10, 11 or 12 except for Kevin Durant, who collected 24 despite missing six of six from beyond the arc. The Thunder won the rebound battle, 45-41, but gave up 18 turnovers, five more than the Lakers.

So the Thunder may finish the year 0-7 against teams from Los Angeles: they lost three to the Lakers and three so far to the Clippers. (The Clippers have won only 17 games this year, three fewer than the Thunder — but clearly they had OKC’s number from the get-go.) And let’s not get too enthused about shutting Kobe down: he only played half an hour, and sat for the entire fourth quarter. When you have a bench like the Lakers do, you can do that sort of thing.

And now, off to the Great White North, where the Raptors await.