New York steals a narrow victory on the road.
Your Los Angeles Lakers managed to fritter away a very winnable game tonight against the New York Knicks, and in so doing blew big nights out of both their two healthy superstars.
Despite a 25-point, 11-rebound, 11-assist triple-double out of All-NBA power forward LeBron James and a 32-point, 14-point double-double from All-Star center Anthony Davis
And despite both those players suiting up for major minutes — LA couldn’t contain the Knicks.
Who surprisingly bested the Lakers at their own game, prioritizing paint scoring and swarming, switchable defense.
Point guard D’Angelo Russell, back after missing Friday’s Spurs game with a non-COVID-19 illness, had a slick first quarter, with his passing game particularly on fire.
Check out how he fakes Knicks small forward R.J. Barrett out with this fancy between-the-legs dribbling.
Creating enough space for an easy dump-off pass to Taurean Prince, wide open in the corner for an easy trey:
Davis (13 points on 5-of-9 shooting from the field) and Reaves (11 points on 4-of-9 shooting the floor) powered LA in the first half overall.
Reaves also matched D-Lo when it came to passing output in the opening two quarters. This Nashian feed to Jaxson Hayes was by far his niftiest dish:
The Knicks had to burn a timeout to recuperate from that dime.
James had a rough shooting start (seven points on 3-of-10 shooting from the field), but would eventually begin to cook at last in the third quarter.
Los Angeles led the Knicks at the break by as marginal an amount as possible, 58-57.
Both teams pretty much exchanged buckets for much of the third quarter.
We experienced a spooky moment, when Jarred Vanderbilt got caught attempting to overcome an Isaiah Hartenstein screen late in the third frame, and appeared to tweak his ankle. He stood up gingerly before eventually walking for the Lakers’ sideline.
After LA put itself within a possession late, 82-80, it got a little sloppy, letting New York kick off an 8-0 run to close out the period. Suddenly, the Knicks were up by double digits, 90-80, at the end of the quarter.
Midway through the fourth period, with the Lakers trailing by 103-93, LeBron James and Anthony Davis fully woke up. Realizing they needed mostly to count on each other with a smattering of Austin Reaves down the stretch (only one other Laker, Rui Hachimura, even got on the board in the period — although, to be fair, Reaves ran the point during most of the quarter, while Russell appeared in just 1:30 of action), they relied on their killer two-man game to narrow the scoring gap:
A few crucial jumpers and a couple bunnies couldn’t connect, though, and it seemed like all was more or less lost, with New York up by six and 27 seconds remaining, on the heels of this cherry-picking moment from 2014 Lakers lottery pick-turned-All-Star Knicks power forward Julius Randle:
Then R.J. Barrett fouled Austin Reaves while the LA shooting guard was heaving up a triple try.
Reaves nailed all three of his attempts at the charity stripe, bringing Los Angeles within four points at the 25-second mark.
Upon being shoved out of bounds, Jalen Brunson calmly nailed a pair of free throws (he went perfect from the line on the night), improving the Knicks to a six-point lead once again, 112-106.
An improbable Anthony Davis triple make following a Reaves miss made it a one-possession game late, with New York up 112-109 and 10.7 seconds remaining in regulation. Davis subsequently wrapped up Josh Hart for what seemed like a pretty obvious foul but, after the initial whistle, attendant referees reviewed the call, and changed the call to a clear-path violation. It was all a bit.. questionable.
This gave LA two technical free throws and possession. Hart made both, putting New York up by the final margin, 114-109.
New York outscored Los Angeles 62-52 in the paint, converted its field goals at a more successful clip (48%-42%), out-rebounded the Lakers 52-41, and enjoyed a major free throw advantage (the Knicks shot 20-of-23 from the foul line, compared to the Lakers’ 12-of-13 from that same terrain), although part of that was the result of clock-stopping fouls by the Lakers late in the contest to get possession back.
Brunson finished with a Knicks-most 29 points on 10-of-21 shooting from the field, four boards and three assists. Randle notched 27 points on 12-of-22 shooting, 14 rebounds, three dimes and a team-best +17 plus-minus.
The loss drops the Lakers to a 15-12 record and the West’s eighth seed. But never fear, as even now, Los Angeles is just six games shy of the conference’s top-seeded Minnesota Timberwolves.
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