The Los Angeles Lakers suffered an embarrassing loss on Wednesday to the Sacramento Kings, a team they’re looking to pass in the standings, and it was the latest episode of their inconsistency syndrome this season.
They hosted the Milwaukee Bucks on Friday, and hours before the opening tip, it was announced that LeBron James wouldn’t play due to his ailing ankle. That meant the Lakers would be up against it versus Giannis Antetokounmpo, Damian Lillard and arguably the second-best team in the Eastern Conference.
But as they have often done this season, they rose to the occasion against a team that had a better record than them.
Los Angeles fell behind by a modest margin in the first quarter, only to surge ahead in the second quarter behind D’Angelo Russell’s hot shooting. The Bucks remained right on its heels down the stretch, and they took a 118-112 lead with just under two minutes left in the fourth quarter. At that point, it looked like L.A. was headed toward another defeat.
Instead, Russell responded with some clutch baskets, his teammates had some clutch plays on the defensive end and the Lakers came away with a surprising 123-122 victory.
Their hot 3-point shooting of late continued, as they knocked down 47.1% of their attempts from that distance, compared to 39.0% for Milwaukee. While Antetokounmpo had a 34-point triple-double and Lillard scored 28 points, the Lakers were able to get enough stops on the two Bucks stars in crunch time to survive this game.
They have now returned to ninth place in the Western Conference with a 35-30 record, and they’re three games behind the sixth-place Phoenix Suns.
With James unable to play, Davis went after it early. He scored 14 points in the first half, but after scoring 20 points through three quarters, he was seen getting treatment on his left shoulder on the bench. He returned to the game, but he never really looked for his shot.
He ended up scoring just 22 points on 10-of-21 shooting, and he attempted only two free throws all night.
However, he did come through defensively. With under 30 seconds remaining in the fourth quarter and the Lakers needing a stop down by one, Davis switched onto Damian Lillard and helped stop him while grabbing the ensuing defensive rebound. Overall, he grabbed 13 rebounds and blocked three shots, and he also had five assists.
Hachimura scored just 12 points on 5-of-16 shooting while missing all but one of his six 3-point…
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