After a 3-3 road trip, the Los Angeles Lakers returned home and hosted the rival Boston Celtics, one of the NBA’s best teams, on Tuesday night.
The Celtics were coming off back-to-back losses but that streak came to an end as despite the Lakers going on an incredible second-half run, they collapsed late and lost 125-120 in overtime.
It was a slow start for the Lakers as LeBron James missed a pair of easy layups. Meanwhile, Derrick White drained a pair of 3s and Blake Griffin had a couple of layups of his own. After a 3 by Jayson Tatum, the Lakers took a timeout trailing 15-5.
The Lakers began establishing Anthony Davis inside out of the timeout, which led to success against the smaller Celtics starting lineup. After a personal 6-0 run by Davis, Marcus Smart answered with another Celtics 3-pointer.
That started another barrage from deep for the Celtics, who just couldn’t miss in the first quarter. As a result, the Lakers trailed 37-24 at the end of the first despite 13 points from Davis.
Despite the Celtics continuing to knock down shots from deep, James led a run in the second quarter to get the deficit down to seven and force a Boston timeout. He was getting to the rim for easy buckets and also setting up his teammates with Beverley draining another 3.
James then hit the bench though and Boston immediately went on another run, extending its lead back to 15. Tatum led the way with 24 first-half points and the Lakers went into the locker room trailing 65-50.
The Celtics did not cool down at halftime as Smart and Tatum came out and drilled 3-pointers at the start of the third quarter to extend the lead to 20.
Lonnie Walker IV finally got involved late in the third quarter, getting on the scoreboard with seven points to cut the deficit back down to 12.
The close to the third quarter was very important for the Lakers as they locked in on defense and James and Davis led another run offensively, cutting what was a 20-point deficit all the way down to six at the end of the period.
L.A.’s run continued into the fourth quarter as they scored the first 10 points of the frame to extend the run to 18-0 overall, five by Russell Westbrook, to take the first lead of the game.
Tatum finally ended the run with a layup out of a timeout, but that didn’t stop the bleeding as James, Davis and Westbrook continued to dominate on both ends. After each hit a dunk in transition, the Lakers built their lead all the way up to 13 in what became one of the more impressive runs of the season.
Led by Tatum though, the Celtics had one last run to tie the game in the final minute. James had a chance to win it at the buzzer but missed a 3, sending the game to overtime.
Westbrook scored the first four points of the overtime period, giving the Lakers some much-needed life. The Celtics responded with 12 straight points of their own, however, retaking the lead for good as L.A. appeared to run out of gas.
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