The NBA regular season is winding down, and on Wednesday, the Los Angeles Lakers ended a six-game road trip with a contest against the woeful Washington Wizards. There is always a temptation to almost mail it in during the final game of a long road trip, especially late in the season when players are anxious for the playoffs to start.
At times on Wednesday, it looked like that’s exactly what the Lakers were doing. It’s something they have been guilty of many times all season when facing inferior competition.
The Wizards seized a 19-8 lead, but L.A. went on a 19-2 run by forcing a number of turnovers. The Lakers led, 39-29, at the end of the first quarter. Their lead grew to as many as 17 points early in the fourth quarter, but that’s when those old bugaboos boredom and complacency seemed to strike.
Washington whittled its deficit to two points with 8:43 left, and although the Lakers expanded their advantage to 119-105 with 3:31 remaining, the game once again grew interesting when the home team got to within five points with fewer than 20 seconds to go.
Fortunately for the Lakers, time ran out, and they had a 125-120 victory. They finished their road trip 5-1 while getting their eighth win in their last nine games and their 10th in their last 13 contests.
While they outrebounded the Wizards by 10, they were outscored by 30 points on 3-pointers. While they had a decent 17 fast-break points, they allowed the Wizards to score 34 points in transition. Los Angeles still has work to do in putting forth a consistently high level of effort, energy and focus, although it has improved in that department over the last few weeks.
Next up for the team is a rare Saturday afternoon home contest, which will take place against the Cleveland Cavaliers, who have the Eastern Conference’s third-best record. With a 44-33 record, the Purple and Gold are still in ninth place in the Western Conference, but they trail both the Phoenix Suns and Sacramento Kings, who are in eighth and seventh place, respectively, by just one game.
As he usually seems to do, Davis had a fast start on Wednesday. He scored 19 points in the first quarter, thanks to 11 made free throws, and that production helped Los Angeles go on its initial first-quarter run.
He feasted in the paint, both in the low post and off passes from teammates, against a small Washington frontline that was without Marvin Bagley III and had a rookie named Tristan Vukcevic, who had only played six previous…
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