Game 1 of the Western Conference semifinal between the Los Angeles Lakers and the Oklahoma City Thunder tips at Paycom Center on Tuesday at 8:30 p.m. Eastern, on NBC and Peacock [1]. Oklahoma City swept the four-game regular-season series by an average of 29.3 points and enters the round on a Phoenix sweep of its own [2].

The paper carried the Lakers' Game 6 close-out of Houston into Tuesday — Luka Doncic had 35 in the 98-78 win, and the Lakers walked into the second round on the back of the youngest first-round MVP-level run of LeBron James's career. The Thunder are a different problem. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander was the regular-season MVP. The Thunder defense led the league in opponent points per possession by a wider margin than any team since the 2008 Celtics [3].

The Lakers are 15.5-point underdogs in Game 1 — the largest spread LeBron James has faced as a starting playoff player [4]. The frame on the Yahoo desks is that the Lakers will need every Doncic-Reaves-James possession to land at full efficiency to keep the series at six. The frame on NBA X is that the Doncic-SGA pairing is the real headline regardless of the result — two perimeter offenses that decide every possession against the same shot clock.

Game 2 is Thursday in Oklahoma City. The series swings west on Saturday May 9 [5].

-- AMARA OKONKWO, Lagos