Lakers Highlights: Anthony Davis, D'Angelo Russell Help LA Win Nail-Biter Over Magic
After a disappointing 132-127 defeat Sunday at the hands of a young, athletic Sacramento Kings club that loves to run, your Los Angeles Lakers enacted an indirect vengeance, of a sort, tonight when they managed to stave off the young, athletic Orlando Magic at Crypto.com Arena. LA improves to a 2-2 record on the young season, and finally gets a reprieve after two straight hard-fought battles.
The Lakers got off to a stellar start, a rarity thus far in (the very early stages of) their 2023-24 season. In the opening quarter, Anthony Davis once again paced LA with eight points on 4-of-5 shooting.
D'Angelo Russell, though, had the highlight of the quarter when he flashed surprising strength in taking this all the way to the rack:
With a surprising Jaxson Hayes-Christian Wood frontcourt in tow, LA closed out the frame on a 13-8 run. LA led after the first frame, 29-24.
The Magic's youth and speed seemed to hamper LA more in the second quarter, as Orlando outscored the Lakers 34-25 for the period. For LA, Russell and Davis enjoyed standout first halves. Davis led the Lakers with 16 points and six rebounds. D-Lo notched 13 points and five dimes. James, playing just 15 minutes with an eye towards preserving his body, struggled to score efficiently, going just 2-of-7 from the floor.
Orlando led 58-54 at the break.
A 7-0 run midway through the third quarter helped the Magic carve out their biggest lead of the night to that point, a whopping eight points (80-72).
An intriguing Darvin Ham lineup (featuring Gabe Vincent and Russell in the backcourt, Cam Reddish at the wing, and Christian Wood and Davis in the frontcourt) helped power LA on a defensive-minded run to abbreviate that lead. With Austin Reaves back in the lineup for Russell, LA quickly went on a 9-0 tear -- LeBron James helped, too, scoring three points off free throws after he was brought in for Reddish with the Magic's edge reduced to six points.
Los Angeles closed the quarter leading Orlando by a point, 81-80.
Darvin Ham opted for a bench-heavy lineup to open the fourth quarter, surrounding starters Russell and James with Vincent, Hayes, and Wood. LeBron James scored all four of LA's first points in the frame.
There was a scary moment early in the frame, where Gabe Vincent was clipped in the face by Magic reserve guard Cole Anthony and stayed on the ground for a pregnant pause. He wound up recuperating. There may have been some acting involved. There was also a scary Cole Anthony moment later in the frame, when he landed hard on a dunk attempt. Incidental D'Angelo Russell contact still yielded an unfortunate fourth foul call against the Lakers' starting point guard.
Both parties traded triples late in the game, though neither could buy a stop on the other end.
Davis was hacked while fighting for a defensive rebound with LA leading by a point and 48.8 seconds left in regulation, forcing LA to take a timeout.
James held onto the ball far too long in a must-score situation, drove the ball towards the basket and dished out to Christian Wood for a desperate corner heave. When the ball invariably clanged out, Jalen Suggs managed to secure the rebound during a wrestling match with Taurean Prince and Davis.
On the ensuing possession, Jalen Suggs leapt at the basket, but was ably defended by Davis, without fouling. Wood grabbed the rock once AD had poked it free, forcing Banchero to foul him, but the Magic had a foul to give. LA got the ball to Russell on the subsequent inbounds, Orlando had to foul him, and he subsequently nailed both his free throws to put the Lakers up by a possession, 106-103, with eight seconds left in regulation.
The Magic had two triple tries to send the game to overtime -- Franz Wagner forced up a hotly-contested heave, but Orlando snagged the rebound, and Jalen Suggs botched a pretty clean look to give LA the W.
The Magic enjoyed a significant edge in made threes, as Los Angeles again struggled to connect from deep. Seven different Magic players managed to make a triple. Orlando shot 14-for-25 from deep, while LA connected on just 8-for-27 shooting from three. Aside from the three-point issues, though, LA actually did shoot well (53.2% overall, thanks to some efficient post scoring), but ball control was proved to be a problem. The Lakers coughed up the ball to the tune of 16 turnovers. Orlando also had a huge advantage in offensive rebounds, which helped yield second-chance scoring opportunities. The Magic enjoyed a 20-4 edge in second-chance points.
For its part, LA had a double-digit edge in paint points (54-44), and a slight advantage in defensive rebounding, 37-32.
Bench shooting guard Gary had a huge game for the Magic, scoring a team-high 17 points on 6-of-6 shooting from the field (including 5-of-5 shooting from deep!). LA did a good job making life hard for young Orlando star forwards Paolo Banchero and Franz Wagner, who finished the night shooting a combined 9-for-31 from the floor.
For Los Angeles, Davis and Russell led the way. The Brow scored 26 points on 12-of-18 shooting from the floor, grabbed 19 rebounds, dished out five dimes, blocked three shots and notched one steal. Russell led the Lakers with 28 points on a hyper-efficient 10-of-14 shooting from the floor (3-of-6 from long range). He also chipped in a team-most eight assists.
James finished up the bout with a decent line, but his minutes limit seemed to adversely impact his rhythm as a scorer. He scored 19 points on 7-of-17 shooting from the floor, four assists, three steals, three rebounds and a block. As usual, James did have one crazy highlight play, which he still manages to pull off even in on off-nights:
Christian Wood supplied surprisingly adept defensive minutes against Orlando's young, jumbo-sized frontcourt. To be fair, he also had a weirdly good defensive night against Kevin Durant and the Phoenix Suns last week. Again, this did happen last year when Wood was with the Dallas Mavericks, and was fully bought in early on. It didn't last then, and it's hard to know for sure if that will change now, although at least the Long Beach native is playing for his favorite team.
Wood finished with nine points on 3-of-6 shooting from the field, nine rebounds and three blocks in just 26:30. He also logged a team-best +12 plus-minus, although that can sometimes be a noisy statistic.
Austin Reaves also enjoyed easily his best game of the season, though his output was more modest than D-Lo's, and he was held out for much of the fourth quarter in favor of Gabe Vincent's defense and Russell's offense. He finished 11 points on 5-of-12 shooting rom the floor, three assists and three rebounds.
Vincent, by the way, finally made his first three of the year! Baby steps, Gabe.
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