The Los Angeles Lakers and Golden State Warriors were two veterans teams that came into the season with championship expectations but have fallen short to this point.
The two Pacific Division rivals went into Saturday night’s game as the ninth and 10th seeds in the Western Conference, looking to build some momentum to move up the standings. All of the stars were in the lineup, making for another intriguing matchup between these two teams. Ultimately, it was the Warriors that came out on top with a 128-121 victory after Anthony Davis got injured, picking up a crucial victory with only a handful of games to play.
It was an even start as the teams were tied at nine, although it wasn’t the starts scoring as Austin Reaves and D’Angelo Russell had all nine for the Lakers while Jonathan Kuminga and Andrew Wiggins had all nine for the Warriors. The Lakers were really making it a point to leave Kuminga open early, and he was making them pay.
As he does against the Warriors though, LeBron James eventually got going with eight straight points, including back-to-back triples, to take the lead.
Klay Thompson also had it going off the bench early for Golden State, although Davis got going inside to give the Lakers a 36-30 lead at the end of one.
D’Angelo Russell heated back up with a 3-pointer to begin the second with Thompson immediately responding with one of his own. With Stephen Curry being scoreless at the time, Thompson provided a huge boost to the Warriors off the bench.
With the Warriors starting to make a dent in their deficit, James had a big four-point play for L.A.
Meanwhile, the Lakers were unfortunately without Davis for the entire second quarter after he got poked in the eye and went back to the locker room. As a result, the Lakers’ interior defense really struggled and the Warriors to a slim 67-66 lead into halftime.
Unfortunately, the Lakers were forced to play the rest of the game without Davis, who was ruled out with an eye contusion. This made things awfully tough for the Lakers on both ends as the Warriors steadily began building their lead in the third quarter.
Curry eventually got going with a four-point play to give Golden State its first double-digit lead. The Lakers had a nice response from there though as Reaves hit a 3 and then James completed a three-point play.
The Warriors were still about to take a 102-93 lead into the fourth quarter with not much defense being played.
James tried to go into superhero mode in the fourth with back-to-back three-point plays, and then Reaves added one of his own.
The game turned into a ref show from there with numerous challenges. The Lakers appeared to cut the deficit to four on a James triple, but they later ruled that he was out of bounds and took it off the board. The shot clock then stopped working, causing more than 15 minutes of delays.
That took a lot of wind out of the Lakers’ sails as they were never able to recover and wound up suffering the costly loss.
What’s next for the Lakers
The Lakers’ homestand continues on Monday night in what is essentially a must-win game against the shorthanded Atlanta Hawks.
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