The Los Angeles Lakers were finally within striking distance. Trailing the Detroit Pistons by 10 points with less than five minutes on the clock, Lakers’ superstar LeBron James led a last-minute charge to make it a one-possession game with 45 seconds to go.
Trailing by three, the 22-year vet attacked the basket. Instead of going up for the finish as he had in previous possessions, James dished the ball to fellow star Anthony Davis, who rose to the rim and drew a whistle at the 29-second mark.
Anthony Davis didn’t get his shot at redemption
The moment felt all too familiar. Davis had found himself in a clutch situation at the line just a game prior. There, he missed both freebies to ice the game against Sacramento. Luckily, the Lakers got the offensive rebound and managed to pull away with the victory.
Earlier in the season, though, he missed another pair of free throws against Orlando, making way for Franz Wagner to hit a go-ahead three-pointer with two seconds left to hand Los Angeles their first home loss of the season.
Davis returned to the line last night, not only with a chance to cut Detroit’s lead to one, but with a shot to redeem himself. The only problem was — he didn’t get touched.
Upon further review, the call on the court was overturned and Detroit’s successful challenge gave the Pistons the ball back up three with under 30 seconds left to play.
Back on the defensive, Austin Reaves got a hand up on Cade Cunningham’s attempt to beat the shot clock, with Davis grabbing the rebound and calling a timeout with 3.7 seconds to go. Reaves — the inbounder past halfcourt — found a wide-open LeBron at the top of the key, who hurled a deep three to tie, but it clanked off the front of the rim and the Lakers fell to the Pistons 117-114.
“We work on end-of-game stuff every day and got the look we wanted. It just didn’t go,” said James in his post-game interview.
Lakers showed promise on the offensive end
Los Angeles has struggled to put the ball in the basket this season. That wasn’t the case last night. The Lakers shot an impressive 54% from the field (40/74), nearly 47% from deep (14/30), and 80% from the charity stripe (20/25).
James – who will celebrate his 40th birthday next Monday – recorded his eighth triple-double of the season with 28 points, 11 rebounds, and 11 assists on 1016 shooting from the field. Davis bounced back from a rough outing on Sunday with 19 points, 10 rebounds, and six assists on 7/14 shooting, although he was held scoreless in the fourth quarter.
Max Christie finished with 17 points with three deep balls, Reaves threw in 12, and Rui Hachimura added 10.
“[Coach JJ Redick] told us to keep shooting the basketball,” Davis told reporters, explaining the team’s mentality while working through a collective shooting slump. “Tonight, he encouraged us to continue to shoot, shoot with confidence, and that’s what we did.”
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Los Angeles was held back by their overwhelming amount of turnovers
While the Lakers were finding success with the shots they got off, they limited their looks through an egregious count of costly turnovers. Los Angeles turned the ball over 20 times to Detroit’s 12. While the Lakers produced just nine points off those turnovers, the Pistons racked up 28.
“They’re a really aggressive defensive team, and myself personally, I didn’t handle it well,” said Reaves, who led the team with six turnovers.
Detroit attempted 92 field goals to Los Angeles’ 74. In his post-game interview, coach Redick described the detrimental effect that turnovers had on his team’s ability to compete:
“It’s very hard to win in this league if you give the other team [18] more scoring opportunities than you. It’s hard to win.”
After Detroit swept the season series and snapped the Lakers’ three-game win streak, Los Angeles fell to 16-13 and dropped to seventh in the Western Conference. The Lakers will pack their bags for San Francisco, where they’ll take on Stephen Curry and the Golden State Warriors on Christmas Day at 7 p.m. Eastern.
