The los angeles lakers returned to action on thursday night after taking a week off from the nba all-star break for the golden state warriors. Matchups between lebron james and stephen curry should always be remembered, but the former missed the game this time with an ankle injury. In a 128-110 loss, the lakers were unable to keep up with curry and the warriors. Anthony davis is a big performer against the smaller warriors, and that was the case early on as he got a putback for the first bucket of the season. Golden state took an early lead thanks to a pair of triples by stephen curry.
After a slow start for the lakers outside of davis, they finally got going with austin reaves and rui hachimura connecting from deep to tie the game at 14 points. Davis and curry were pounding buckets at will for their teams, and the warriors took the lead 31-28 at the end of the first quarter. To start the second quarter, l.a.’s bench did a good job, regaining control with some good two-way play, notably from max christie and jaxson hayes. The same could be said about warriors backup center trayce jackson-davis, who did a good job keeping it close to home for his team. The warriors were eventually able to take the lead back with a run on another barrage of 3s, led by curry.
The lakers entered the halftime locker room trailing 67-56 after andrew wiggins had a putback at the buzzer. Darvin ham made a halftime change by moving davis onto jonathan kuminga so he could roam, but it didn’t matter because the warriors stayed hot from deep. Curry had a circus layup and then a triple, extending golden state’s lead to 15. The lakers were able to reduce the deficit to nine by using davis’ inside scoring. That was short-lived, however, as he didn’t receive much help, and then kuminga had another buzzer-beater for the warriors, who took the lead back to 98-82 going into the fourth.
The lakers showed some life in the fourth round, with christie and d’angelo russell hitting back-to-back triples. Wiggins scored seven quick points for the warriors, though.
