Lakers Beat Pacers, Win 1st In-Season Tournament Title in NBA History
December 9, 2023... This is the date that will go down in the history books as when the first in-season tournament in the history of the NBA came to a conclusion.
And it ended with none other than the Los Angeles Lakers as the champions. Despite LA competing in unfamiliar playing territory in Las Vegas, knowing that this match would not count towards their regular season record and facing off against one of the premier young teams in the league in the Indiana Pacers, they still came out on top.
Before we get into the official recap and break down how the purple and gold finished as champions in Sin City, let's show love to some top performers from both teams:
Anthony Davis: 41 points, 20 rebounds, 5 assists, 4 blocks
LeBron James: 21 points, 11 rebounds, 4 assists
Tyrese Haliburton: 20 points, 11 assists
Benedict Mathurin: 20 points, 2 rebounds
Living Up To The Vegas Atmosphere
Both teams understood the assignment clearly starting in the first quarter: play fast and give the sitting in the Las Vegas stands a show. For the Lakers, this meant pushing the pace in transition and attacking the offensive glass hard. LeBron James came up with a handful of steals and boards and had his LA team running the break.
On the flip side, Indiana wanted to get a plethora of three-pointers up off the jump. In just the first five minutes of the game, the Pacers put up five 3's and connected on three compared to LA's single missed attempt. Fortunately, Anthony Davis made his presence felt for the purple and gold quickly too as he dropped a quick 12 points in the first 8 minutes without missing a field goal himself.
Cam Reddish and Jarred Vanderbilt got the infamous Tyrese Haliburton assignment early on and limited him to just 3 points in that first quarter. He did his best to get to his spots but LA made sure to target and trap him most possessions and Haliburton had to defer to some deep treys as a result, with one not even touching the rim. His creation for others remained strong though with 3 assists.
With about 6:33 left in the quarter, Davis snagged a defensive board and immediately sent an outlet pass to Taurean Prince, who took a few dribbles and connected on an and-one at the rim.
The entire play looked like a conditioning drill in practice and summed up the energy LA brought since tip-off, beautiful basketball. This fast pace from both squads led to 16 fouls (!!) being called in the first quarter alone.
Austin Reaves Time
Both teams rolled out different lineups to start off the second quarter. LA kept LeBron James and Austin Reaves as their primary ball-handlers with Jaxson Hayes, Cam Reddish and Max Christie filling the rest of the slots. This allowed Reaves to continue creating for himself and the result was a smooth 7 points in just 11 minutes.
James, on the other hand, caught the attention of ABC commentator Mike Breen, who immediately noticed a number of his points early in the quarter coming through cuts and off-ball movement.
Even with some very efficient offense from LA in the first half (55% shooting from the field, 22 points from Austin Reaves), the Pacers were still in the mix at halftime with the score being 60-65 in the Lakers favor.
A big reason for this was due to LA's reliance on AD's and Reaves' scoring inside the arc. 52 out of their 65 first-half points came in the point and they could not connect on a single three-pointer as a team. Indiana, on the other hand, finished the half with 5 made three's and connected on 21 out of 22 free-throw attempts.
The Pacers also started to find success in transition as they recorded 14 fast break points in this time and only turned the ball over four times. Both Isaiah Jackson (8 points, 3 blocks) and T.J. McConnell (6 points, 3 assists) came up big for them in the quarter.
Classic Brewing
Moving on to the third quarter, both teams kept on most of the same themes. The Lakers showed plenty of energy and had numerous runs where it looked like they could've taken off with the game, building up their largest lead to 11.
However, the three-point struggles continued as they still had yet to see one go in despite attempting ten of them. Tyrese Haliburton started finding some loopholes in their defense as he found his way to the rim and got up to 15 points and 9 assists in this quarter.
Luckily for the Lakeshow, Davis continued to ensure that the paint on both sides of the court had his name stamped all over. He continued to dominate the boards, getting up to 16 on his own in this period and helped the Lakers total skyrocket to 45 compared to Indiana's 27 through 36 minutes.
Taurean Prince made sure that the purple and gold ended the third quarter on a high note with two excellent possessions in the final two minutes. He connected on a corner a three-pointer, LA's first of the game, to put the team up 88-79 and then recorded a block immediately on the other end.
Fast-forward just a couple of seconds later and James found AD in the pick and roll perfectly for an epic alley-oop: 90-80. Finally, Bennedict Mathurin answered for the Pacers with a runner at the buzzer to give us a score of 90-82 heading into the final 12 minutes of the game.
4Q
In the snap of a finger, some big plays from T.J. McConnell, Obi Toppin and Mathurin shortened the Lakers lead to just three less than two minutes into the final quarter. The basketball community had been hearing this team brewing something special since the season started and it looked like that same energy that had propelled them to this title game was still in full effect.
Immediately after, both Cam Reddish and D'Angelo Russell made sure that the Lakers responded with that same energy. Dlo got to work with two quick buckets while Cam Reddish forced two straight stops on McConnell who was starting to get into rhythm between the 10:00-9:00 minute mark in the fourth.
The intensity went up a significant notch once the last few minutes rolled around and the environment was truly that of the NBA playoffs. Thanks to excellent rim protection from AD, a transition dunk and corner three for Reddish and top-notch playmaking from LBJ, LA built a 115-99 lead behind an 13-0 run in the fourth (their largest lead of the game up until that point). AD also captured his 39th point and 20th rebound of the game just before we stepped into the final three minutes of the game.
Haliburton and company did their best to keep fighting in the final minutes but once Myles Turner fouled out, LA just built on and held their lead.
The final score was 123-109 and it is now official, the Lakers are the 2023 champions of the very first in-season tournament!
