Ajay Mitchell scored 24 points and handed out 10 assists without a turnover Saturday, and the Thunder rolled past the Lakers 131-108 to take a 3-0 lead in the Western Conference semifinals. The second-year guard from Belgium was the sharpest player on the floor in a game that pushed Oklahoma City one win from another sweep.
Mitchell did it with the kind of poise that seemed far away a year ago, when he was not in the Thunder's playoff rotation during Oklahoma City's championship run. He was a fill-in starter while Jalen Williams recovered from a left hamstring strain that came in Game 2 of the first round against the Phoenix Suns, and he used the chance Saturday to keep attacking without forcing the issue. Mitchell said the biggest thing for him was to go out confident. He added that he knows what he can do, wants to compete, help the team win and play freely.
The numbers behind the run are hard to ignore. Through the three wins over the Lakers, Mitchell averaged 20.7 points, 6.7 assists and 1.0 turnover while shooting 53.3% from the floor. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander averaged 21 points per game through the series, and the Lakers held him to more than 10 points below his season average. That mattered because Oklahoma City did not need its MVP-level scorer to carry the night; Mitchell and the rest of the rotation already had control.
On the other side, Austin Reaves had a difficult night against Oklahoma City’s defense, finishing 5-of-13 from the floor. tracking showed he was 2-of-7 when Mitchell was his primary defender. Thunder coach Mark Daigneault called Reaves an incredibly tough cover and said he had to earn everything. He said Mitchell stayed fundamentally sound, made very few egregious mistakes and did not give Reaves anything easy. Daigneault also said Mitchell was huge offensively in the second half and steady on defense.
Mitchell’s emergence has come quickly for a player who started as a two-way player and was slowed for months by midseason toe surgery. He averaged 13.6 points and 3.6 assists for the 64-18 Thunder and finished fifth in Sixth Man of the Year voting, then stepped into a larger role with Williams listed week-to-week. That matters now because the Thunder are trying to finish a second straight sweep, and they have looked comfortable doing it. Through seven games, they had outscored opponents by 128 points, the best margin by a reigning NBA champion in league history. Around the league, the bracket and standings pages are already moving, from the Nba Playoffs 2026 bracket set as top seeds draw first-round opponents to the latest Nba Playoffs 2026 Standings: Rockets stumble, Knicks open with 113-102 win, but Oklahoma City has kept its focus on the next game, not the bigger picture.
The old labels no longer fit Mitchell. He once was mostly a garbage-time piece during last year’s title run. Now he is the guard turning a playoff series into a showcase, and the Thunder have the lead that usually belongs to teams with far more experience than this one.
