All good things must come to an end. For the Lakers, their run came to an end this week after an undefeated first year in the NBA Cup and a hot start to the season.

After being throttled by the Suns on Tuesday, the Lakers found themselves in a must-win scenario against the No. 1 seed in the Western Conference. Ironically, even though the Lakers played one of their best defensive games of the season, they lacked the offense to secure victory on Friday.

And the Lakers have effectively been eliminated from the NBA Cup. At the moment it is just a formality and not a formality that they will be abolished. They would have to do around 437 things on Tuesday, the last day of the NBA Cup, to make it out of group play.

Frankly, as our former fearless leader noted, I think it was remarkably ethical that the Lakers decided to win the NBA Cup before capitalism took over and ruined the sanctity and purity of the tournament.

So let’s dive into the loss. As always, grades are based on each player’s expectations. The grade “B” represents the average performance of that player.

Rui Hachimura

30 minutes, 8 points, 5 rebounds, 2 assists, 1 steal, 2 blocks, 4-7 FG, 0-1 3PT, -8

The fact that I can’t tell you much about what Rui did in this game seems like a pretty good summary. Three sticks is a solid performance from him defensively, but it was one of those games where he just drifted around for too long offensively.

Grade: C+

LeBron James

34 minutes, 12 points, 8 rebounds, 6 assists, 5-13 FG, 0-4 3PT, 2-2 FT, -12

When I wrote the sentence about there not being enough offense in this case, it was aimed directly at LeBron.

We’re now at a point where LeBron’s turnovers really need to be a talking point. With five more on Friday, LeBron has had at least four in each of the last nine games and is averaging 5.3 over that span.

Combine that with a shooting night like Friday’s and you get a really bad LeBron game.

Grade: D

Anthony Davis

38 minutes, 15 points, 12 rebounds, 7 assists, 1 steal, 4 blocks, 5-10 FG, 0-1 3PT, 5-7 FT, -5

While AD was as good as he normally is defensively and rebounding on Friday, he just didn’t do enough offensively. Against a smaller OKC team, AD needs more than 15 points.

This is partly due to the people around him needing to pay more attention to him. Part of that is thanks to Redick for not giving him more shots. Part of this also falls on AD. But there shouldn’t be a scenario where he only has 10 field goal attempts against the Thunder.

Grade: C+

Dalton Knecht

33 minutes, 20 points, 6 rebounds, 4 assists, 7-16 FG, 6-12 3PT, -10

There was probably no bigger bright spot for the Lakers on Friday than Knecht. He thrives in the starting lineup and is absolutely not to blame for the Lakers’ lack of offense.

His late step-back 3-pointer? This is a man who plays with a lot of confidence.

Grade: A

Austin Reaves

29 minutes, 11 points, 5 rebounds, 3 assists, 3-11 FG, 1-9 3PT, -8

I’ll give Austin some breathing room for his second half on Friday after the bad fall he took. Even after that, he had a few big scenes in the fourth part.

But he’s also been a little nervous lately. His playmaking and rebounding weren’t as strong and his shooting wasn’t consistent.

Grade: D

D’Angelo Russell

26 minutes, 17 points, 9 rebounds, 3 assists, 2 steals, 6-11 FG, 4-9 3PT, 1-1 FT, +4

The other bright spot of the evening was D’Lo. Given his work on both sides of the ball, I thought this was his best game of the season.

Offensively, he finally seems to have found his shot again (bang on wood). If he can combine his style of play with his scoring ability and add the rebounds like he did Friday, then you have a great defender on the bench.

Defensively he was very active. To be honest, many of D’Lo’s defensive mistakes have less to do with effort and more to do with poor execution.

Grade: A-

Max Christie

23 minutes, 8 points, 1 rebound, 2-3 FG, 0-1 3PT, 4-4 FT, +4

Overall, this was a good Christie game. After the first few weeks of this season where he looked completely lost and played his way out of the rotation, he has been more or less what was expected since his return.

One of the bright spots was that he no longer just attacks the rim from two feet away, and I don’t even say that as a joke. He also made a big jump late after crashing out of the corner.

The downside of that was his fairly inexplicable foul against SGA late. Whether it was a miscommunication or Christie thought the Lakers had a foul to commit, he didn’t even give the defense a chance to get a stop.

Grade: B-

Cam Reddish

13 minutes, 0-1 FG, 0-1 3PT, +2

The Lakers’ problems on offense can at least be explained by giving 28 minutes to two players who are completely negative in this regard.

Reddish will never provide anything on offense on a regular basis. He has to be borderline good defensively to warrant playing time.

The problem is that there is no one in the squad who could be given this playing time.

Grade: F

Gabe Vincent

15 minutes, 2 points, 1-1 FG, 1 rebound, 0-2 FT, -7

I’m now fully convinced that the Lakers should give Quincy Olivari a few games of Vincent’s minutes once he’s healthy and returns from injury and see what comes of it.

At the moment there is simply no reason to eliminate Vincent because otherwise he would not have a healthy body.

Grade: F

JJ Redick

I mentioned it in the AD section, but JJ has to take some blame for AD only getting 10 shots in this game. I think this will be a game he looks back on and regrets some decisions.

On the other hand, after the defeat against Phoenix, there were two consecutive strong defensive performances. The Thunder are averaging just under 114 points per game and the Lakers held them to 101. This seemed like probably their best defensive game of the season, which makes it all the more frustrating that the offense is so far behind.

Grade: B-

DNPs from Friday: Christian Koloko, Maxwell Lewis, Armel Traore

Inactive on Friday: Jalen Hood-Schifino, Jaxson Hayes, Bronny James, Quincy Olivari, Jarred Vanderbilt, Christian Wood

You can follow Jacob on Twitter at @JacobRude.