Lakers forward Pau Gasol sees the team's Game 5 battle against the Thunder on Tuesday night as the biggest game of the season.

The teams are tied at two games apiece.

"It's a must-win for us," Gasol said after Monday's practice. "They can afford to lose the game and then go back to Oklahoma and try to do their thing again and force that Game 7 ... We can't afford to lose this game.

"It's really a game where we want to establish ourselves and send a message to them that they might be playing well, they're played really well at home, they got two games, but that's all they're going to get ... We got to play harder, we got to play smarter than them and make sure we make a statement in that Game 5 and make them understand that there's no chance, there's no light."

Oklahoma City dominated Los Angeles in Game 4, but coach Phil Jackson wants his team to forget about the outcome.

"We have to let that one go down the drain and flush it down the toilet and let it go," Jackson said. "You don't have to bring it back up again and analyze it."