Lakers at Hornets: Defense helps L.A. finish trip with winning record
It was far from pretty, but the Los Angeles Lakers haven’t needed pretty over the past few weeks without their superstars. They needed to steal some wins and on Monday night, the Lakers did it again as they delivered another gritty performance, defeating the Hornets 101-93 in Charlotte.
The Lakers didn’t have a great offensive game and they nearly avoided a disaster in the final moments as the Hornets were resilient in making a run to win the game on their home court. But the Lakers were able to keep their cool and also get some huge shots down the stretch, two 3-pointers from Alex Caruso and another from Dennis Schröder, to hold off the Hornets.
Kyle Kuzma was key for the Lakers all night long, scoring 24 points in a starring role while the Laker stars continue to recuperate. Andre Drummond also made his presence felt with 12 rebounds, including four offensive rebounds to help get extra possessions. Now the Lakers come home for a two-game set against the Western Conference-leading Utah Jazz.
Handling your business
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Earlier today, the Dallas Mavericks made headlines for voicing their opinions on the NBA's new play-in format. Basically, star player Luka Doncic and owner Mark Cuban said it's a "mistake" because their team is now at risk of missing the postseason tournament if they are unable to win one of two games in the play-in. https://twitter.com/espn_macmahon/status/1382014814818603009 And it's hard not to think of these complaints in contrast to what the Lakers just did. Such complaints could have been avoided had the Mavericks not followed up their upset of the Jazz with a loss to the Rockets. The Lakers did their job earlier when they were fully healthy to get close to the top of the standings. What they've done for the past few weeks, including this 7-game road stretch where they went 4-3, is take care of their business despite being undermanned. The Lakers, as soon as LeBron got hurt, were seen as a team that could potentially be in the same position the Mavericks are in now: fighting to avoid the play-in tournament and get into the top-six. But the Lakers role players have done the job of getting the Lakers to a position where they are at least 1.5 games ahead of 6th place Portland and now four games ahead of 7th place Dallas. The Mavericks, and several other teams chasing the throne, would do well to note that the Lakers survived because they did the stuff nobody wants to do: defense.
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