Lakers News: L.A. Holds On To Beat Pelicans In OT Thriller
Your Los Angeles Lakers are officially stringing wins together! Tonight, L.A. worked its home Crypto.com Arena crowd into a frenzy with a nail biter of a victory, a 120-117 overtime thriller over a solid New Orleans Pelicans team.
The big headline: seven games in, Lonnie Walker IV really looks like an honest-to-goodness NBA-caliber starter. He has emerged as the closest thing the Lakers have to a reliable bucket getter beyond stars Anthony Davis and LeBron James (with apologies to Russell Westbrook). Tonight, the 6'4" shooting guard sliced and diced to the rim and made some timely triples en route to a team-best 28 points (his season-high) on 9-of-17 shooting from the floor (5-of-9 from deep!) and 5-of-6 shooting from the charity stripe. He also chipped in three rebounds, an assist, a steal and a block.
In other Lakers role player news, sharpshooting small forward Matt Reeves has now emerged as a more critical player in head coach Darvin Ham's rotation than Kendrick Nunn or Damian Jones, who were both healthy scratches in an overtime game. Reeves, as you'll recall, was a training camp invitee who narrowly made L.A.'s opening night roster after some impressive long range preseason nights. Having a wing whose shooting opponents need to respect is so imperative for L.A., a team lousy with mediocre point guards, that to an extent it makes sense Nunn has lost his standing on the team.
One wonders how Dennis Schröder, who isn't much of a three-point shooter, will be integrated into the lineup when he returns from his thumb surgery -- or if Thomas Bryant, also recuperating from a thumb surgery, will go the way of Jones. Ham seems comfortable playing Anthony Davis and Wenyen Gabriel at center. It's clear that the priority is creating pace and space around James, Davis and Westbrook, so traditional centers may not fit that mold. Nunn is a career 36.2% three-point shooter, so his fall out of the rotation is a bit more surprising, although he certainly wasn't nailing his treys this year (he's making just 27.3% of his 3.7 attempts).
Given that AD misses plenty of games, Jones and Bryant should still get some run, but the fact that they may have already been relegated to break-glass-in-case-of-emergency pieces is somewhat surprising.
But anyway, let's get to the game.
Both teams started out slowly on offense. When Russell Westbrook was brought in for starting small forward Troy Brown Jr., he helped spruce things up for L.A. a bit. L.A. whiffed on a ton of long-range looks in the opening frame, ultimately going 3-of-11 from deep during the period.
But one of those triples was from, you guessed it, Russell Westbrook off a LeBron James cross-court dime:
What's that? Russell Westbrook is a terrible three-point shooter and it's a miracle that one went in? Fine, fine, whatever you say. On this night, on this play, it connected. This would be Brodie's lone made three of the night, of four attempts.
Overall, the Lakers went just 9-of-26 (35%) from the floor in the first quarter, while the Pelicans shot 11-of-21 (52%). New Orleans led after the opening period, 27-23.
During the game's second period, Los Angeles enjoyed one of its best frames of basketball this season, outscoring the Pellies by 16 points (33-17) in the frame to take a double digit halftime lead, 56-44.
The team looked really engaged and, well, joyful by this point of the night. It really feels like, with the burden of expectations lifted somewhat, the team is able to play a bit more freely. Staggering the minutes of Russell Westbrook and LeBron James seems to have worked wonders for both players. After starting the game 1-for-7 from the floor, Davis finally started to look re-energized a bit. Check out his excellent two-way play here, amidst a 9-0 Lakers run in the period:
That Westbrook pass wasn't even the spiffiest dish he served up in that second quarter.
For that first half, Westbrook may have been the Lakers' MVP, scoring 11 points on 5-of-7 shooting from the floor. He also chipped in seven assists and six rebounds.
In the third period, L.A.'s luck changed for the worse. The Pelicans outscored the Lakers 35-24 in the frame, thanks in large part to the scoring efforts of stars Zion Williamson and CJ McCollum, plus some jumpers from energy-changing bench guard Jose Alvarado.
Westbrook only made one bucket in the second half, but darn it if it wasn't pretty, a crafty up-and-under layup over the much bigger Williamson in the third quarter:
Both teams basically held serve throughout much of the fourth frame. Walker, who was pushing the pace all night, posterized Alvarado with this face-melting fast break slam early in the quarter:
Los Angeles caught a pretty big break with 1.6 seconds remaining in regulation and the team trailing by three. 6'8" rookie Pelicans point guard Dyson Daniels rebounded a rare three-point miss from Lonnie Walker, and the Lakers, in the penalty, had no choice but to foul him and stop the clock. Had the rookie made either of his free throws, L.A. would have been doomed.
Instead, he missed both, LeBron James grabbed his eighth defensive rebound of the night, and L.A. was able to call a timeout with 1.3 seconds now left in the fourth quarter.
L.A. still needed a miracle to send the game to overtime. So Darvin Ham subbed out Walker for three-point marksman Matt Ryan (why he kept Patrick Beverley on the floor instead of Walker is a head-scratcher), promptly calling a critical ATO play for the 6'7" wing. Austin Reaves inbounded a cross-court pass to the former DoorDash driver, who did this on a fadeaway buzzer-beating corner heave:
I think Matty Ice will be a Laker for a good while longer this season. Your Lakers were suddenly headed into the five-minute OT period with all the momentum in the world, after New Orleans essentially botched a win.
Darvin Ham decided to stick with four his starters (Patrick Beverley/Walker/James/Davis) in overtime. The only deviation from Ham's starting five was reserve Austin Reaves, in for Troy Brown Jr. Effective drives from Davis and James got Los Angeles up by five with 1:56 remaining in the first overtime frame. Suddenly, neither team could hit the broad side of a barn, with both sides going scoreless for the next minute.
After Anthony Davis had his own rebound swiped by by Pelicans reserve big man (and ex-Laker) Larry Nance Jr. with 42.5 seconds left, CJ McCollum nailed an 11-foot pullup jumper, shrinking the margin to 120-117 Lakers. A fatigued James responded with a tough pullup try look of his own. McCollum snagged the rebound and dribbled into a game-tying triple attempt. He missed, Davis snagged the rebound, and the Pelicans seemed to forget they could foul him at any point in the 3.6 seconds before time expired. Mental gaffe by the opposition or not, a win is a win. "The Crypt" was absolutely ecstatic.
Beyond Walker, several other Lakers had solid games. Despite looking a little limited by their reported injuries (Davis is dealing with lower back tightness, James a sore foot), both All-Stars put up 20-point double-doubles. Davis pulled down 16 rebounds, dished out four assists, stuffed four blocks, and swiped one steal. James grabbed 10 boards, had eight dimes, and swatted two blocks of his own.
Starting small forward Troy Brown Jr. shot 4-of-7 from the field (1-of-3 from deep) and made all six of his free throws to finish with 15 points. He also notched a double-double, pulling down 10 critical boards. Westbrook finished with 13 points on 6-of-10 shooting, nine assists (against six turnovers), seven rebounds, and a block. Though Reaves and Beverley didn't shoot particularly well (2-of-6 and 0-of-3, respectively), both made their presence felt as passers and defenders for long stretches.
Zion Williamson (27 points on 11-of-21 shooting, plus seven assists and five rebounds) and CJ McCollum (22 points on 10-of-27 shooting, along with nine boards and seven dimes) led the way for New Orleans.
After the Lakers shot an encouraging 13-of-30 from deep in their Denver win Sunday, the team's long-range shooting came down to earth tonight. The club went just 10-of-36 from beyond the arc (27.8%). That said, they took significantly more treys than the Hornets, who had just 25 takes from three (making 32% of them).
With the win, the Lakers move to a 2-5 record on the young 2022-23 season. There's plenty of work left to be done, but this marked the club's second straight solid (home) win over a postseason contender. The Pelicans fall to 4-3 with the defeat.
Friday night, L.A. hopes to keep the good times rolling at home against one of the West's surprise early season success stories, the 6-3 Utah Jazz.
