The Los Angeles Lakers hosted the L.A. Clippers on Wednesday night, trying to snap an 11-game losing streak against their in-city rivals.
The Clippers recently completed a blockbuster trade for James Harden although he was not yet ready to suit up against the Lakers. The Lakers were shorthanded as well without some key role players, but that didn’t matter as they were able to erase an early deficit to end the losing streak with a 130-125 overtime victory.
Taurean Prince was a late scratch for the Lakers due to knee soreness and Cam Reddish got the start in his place, kicking off the scoring with a steal and transition layup. After the Clippers responded with six straight points, D’Angelo Russell settled the Lakers in with a triple.
Kawhi Leonard was red-hot to start, however, as he made his first five shots, including a trio of 3-pointers, to give the Clippers an early 19-11 lead.
Leonard continued to begin the game on fire with a career-high 18 first quarter points. With the game starting to get out of hand, the Lakers ended the first with back-to-back triples to cut their deficit to 37-24 going into the second.
Facing his former team, Russell Westbrook hit a midrange jumper to get the scoring started in the second. From there though, the Lakers began to chip away as Reddish drilled a 3 and then LeBron James went into attack mode, getting L.A.’s deficit back to single digits.
After a Clipper timeout though, they went on another run as the Lakers continued to struggle on the defensive end. James did what he could to keep the Lakers in it with 17 first-half points although the Clippers still took a 61-48 lead into the halftime locker room.
The second half began with Paul George and Russell each making two straight buckets for their respective teams. The Lakers began chipping away again from there as Davis completed a three-point play to get the deficit back to single digits.
Russell continued to make plays for himself and others while Reddish did a solid job slowing down Leonard. Austin Reaves eventually got in on the action with back-to-back buckets and then Christian Wood buried a 3 to get the Lakers within one all of a sudden.
After a Westbrook turnover, Max Christie gave the Lakers their first lead with a pair of free throws and they would eventually go into the fourth quarter leading 87-85. The Lakers outscored the Clippers 39-24 in a stellar third quarter.
George got hot to begin the fourth with back-to-back 3s to give the Clippers the lead again. The Lakers’ physicality began to take over from there as the Clippers couldn’t stop fouling. Russell would go on to drain another triple midway through the quarter, giving the Lakers their biggest lead at 103-97.
The Lakers maintained that decent lead until late in the fourth where at that point the Clippers had to make one last run to avoid the loss. Westbrook proceeded to turn the ball over though, leading to a breakaway dunk by Davis.
The Clippers fought until the very end as Westbrook made a 3 and George made a layup to get them back within four in the final minute. After a Russell miss, George drilled a triple of his own to make it a one-point game.
Russell was able to make a pair of free throws, so the Clippers’ deficit was back to three with 18.5 seconds to play. George launched another deep one and Reddish committed a silly foul, so the game was tied after George made all three at the line.
Russell got another great look at the buzzer but missed, so the game went to overtime.
After a quiet second half, Leonard got back on track with a bucket to begin the extra period, although George then fouled out when he reached on James.
Davis made an easy bucket from there and then Reaves completed a three-point play to put the Lakers back up by three. Reaves then came up with a steal on Leonard and found James for an alley-oop in transition as the Crypto.com Arena crowd erupted.
As was the case all night though, the Clippers had an immediate response with a three-point play by Leonard. After another bucket by Reaves, Leonard connected on another triple to make it a one-point game in the final minute.
Reaves would go on to make a pair at the line and then the Lakers finally got a stop when they needed it. Wood would then close out the game with a monstrous putback dunk.
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