The Lakers were looking to stack wins and are not in position to judge an opponent by its win-loss record.
So, when the Lakers encountered a Pelicans team that arrived at Crypto.com Arena on Tuesday night with a 19-43 record, they knew they couldn’t afford to overlook New Orleans. Especially since Tthe Pelicans had won four of their last five and because they have a talented core of young talent that includes Zion Williamson, Herb Jones, Trey Murphy III and Dejounte Murray.
But with all five starters scoring in double figures, the Lakers (37-24) pulled out a 110-101 win over a stubborn Pelicans team.
Luka Doncic led the Lakers with 27 points, 10 rebounds and seven assists. But he was just 10-for-22 from the field and three-for-10 from three-point range and he had seven turnovers.
LeBron James had 21 points, seven rebounds and seven assists. But he had five turnovers.
Austin Reaves had 13 points on four-for-15 shooting and two-for-seven on three-pointers, eight rebounds and five turnovers.
Deandre Ayton had 13 points and eight rebounds and Marcus Smart had 10 points and played his usual stellar defense, picking up four steals.
The Lakers had 20 turnovers through three quarters, which didn’t help their cause.
They had just one in the fourth quarter and that came on a late-game 24-second violation when they were running out the clock.
The Lakers didn’t help themselves by losing their composure.
Doncic was given a technical foul in the second quarter. Luke Kennard received a technical foul in the third quarter and Deandre Ayton got a technical foul in the fourth quarter after being called for a foul blocking a shot by Williamson.
When the Lakers decided just to play basketball, they had plenty of highlights.
James slipped trying to catch a lob from Marcus Smart, falling down on the court. But James regained his balance, got the ball and threw down a two-handed rim-rattling dunk while being fouled by Murray.
Smart and James hooked up again, this time in the third quarter. Smart stole a pass, leaped in the air and threw the basketball to a sprinting James. James then threw the pass back to Smart, who in turn threw it back to James for another dunk.
The Lakers found the Pelicans to be a handful all game, falling behind 78-76 at the end of the third quarter. The Lakers were sloppy with the basketball in the third, turning the ball over 10 times.
This showed the Lakers that the Pelicans were not just going to be a pushover.
“You know, they’re publicly talking about it: they want to be in the play-in and everybody loves playing the Lakers here, so it’s going to be a tough game,” Lakers coach JJ Redick said before the game. “And I think we have to do a great job of getting back and a great job of protecting the pain..I mean, they’re just at the rim all the time…They’re playing really good basketball right now.”
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