After picking up a big win over the Oklahoma City Thunder, the Los Angeles Lakers returned home for another big matchup with the Boston Celtics as part of the NBA’s annual Christmas Day slate.
The stars were out in the latest edition of the NBA’s greatest rivalry, and it ultimately was the Celtics who came out on top with a 126-115 victory over the Lakers.
The Celtics got off to a hot start with Jaylen Brown making a pair of buckets and a triple, then Jrue Holiday connecting from deep and Kristaps Porzingis dunking a putback to make it 12-0 before the Lakers called a quick timeout.
Cam Reddish hit a much-needed 3-pointer to get the Lakers on the board out of the timeout. The Lakers were providing no resistance defensively early though as the Celtics were getting to the rim easily and either scoring or getting fouled to extend their lead to 25-10.
Luckily for the Lakers, the Celtics didn’t have an answer for Anthony Davis early as he had 13 first-quarter points. Boston eventually started missing some shot so L.A. was able to cut its deficit to 32-23 at the end of the first.
Taurean Prince heated up to begin the second with five straight points although Payton Pritchard also draining back-to-back 3s for Boston.
With Porzingis in early foul trouble though, Davis kept attacking and even made a rare triple to cut the deficit to just three at 47-44.
Rui Hachimura got in on the action with a pair of dunks although Porzingis responded with big triple to get the momentum back for the Celtics.
James and Brown ran into each other towards the end of the quarter and both were shaken up on the play. With halftime coming up though it gave them a little extra time to get back into it as the Lakers went into the locker room with a slim 58-57 deficit.
LeBron scored to begin the third quarter, giving the Lakers their first lead of the day. Prince then hit another triple, although Holiday responded with one of his own and then Brown had a thunderous dunk to force a Lakers timeout.
Porzingis caught fire from there as the big man was giving the Lakers problems on both ends until Davis dunked on him in transition. That led to a nice spurt for the Lakers with Austin Reaves getting in on the action from deep.
Unfortunately though, the Celtics got hot to end the third quarter, so despite Davis continuing to pound them inside, the Lakers trailing 99-90 going into the fourth.
The Lakers weren’t able to make much of a dent into their deficit in the first half of the fourth quarter. The Celtics were able to turn their defense into transition offense to keep their lead right around 10 going into the final six minutes.
Davis continued to do his part by making another triple. James was struggling offensively, however, which didn’t allow the Lakers to make a late run with them continuing to struggle getting stops as well.
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