It wasn’t easy…and I’m not sure if it was fun…but the Los Angeles Lakers ultimately prevailed Tuesday night against the Memphis Grizzlies, 94-92. With the Grizzlies’ retro-style court, you would have thought you were in the 1990s era of basketball with how low scoring it was.
Here’s our recap of the game!
Player of the game – LeBron James
In a low-scoring game, the Lakers didn’t have too many offensive performances that jumped off the stat sheet at you. The team as a whole only made 43.7% of their field goals in the game, with LeBron James making 55% of his attempts to end with 26 points. He added 11 rebounds, seven assists, a steal, and a game-sealing block towards the end of the game after a beautiful fadeaway mid-range jumper.
LeBron James came into tonight’s game averaging 23.6 points, 8.4 rebounds, and 7.4 assists. He has slowly eased himself into this season just as his running mate Anthony Davis has, as Davis also has a points-per-game mark that is below his usual average at 21.7 points per game. Davis probably deserves co-player of the game honors, as he also had 26 points this evening. LeBron really closed the game though, so we’ll give it to him tonight.
Stat of the game – Lakers with eight second-chance points
The Lakers didn’t drastically lose the second-chance-points battle to the Grizzlies, but the Lakers did score much less in that area when compared to their season average. Coming into tonight the Lakers led the entire NBA in second-chance points per game with 17.6. Coincidentally enough, the Grizzlies are second in the entire NBA as they found a way to limit the Lakers to only eight second-chance points from the Lakers’ nine offensive rebounds and the Grizzlies’ 13 turnovers.
Quote of the night – “4-0 on the trip. Can’t be unhappy about that”
Frank Vogel: “4-0 on the trip. Can’t be unhappy about that.”
— Ryan Ward (@RyanWardLA) January 6, 2021
This came from head coach Frank Vogel, as the Lakers finished their first road trip a perfect 4-0 with two wins each over the Spurs and Grizzlies. It probably felt good for the Lakers to get it out of their system, as they haven’t taken a normal road trip since early March, or even late February 2020.
What’s next?
The Lakers will return home after a four-game road trip to commence a back-to-back at Staples Center with the San Antonio Spurs in town on Thursday for the third game between the two teams in this young season. They won’t play again during the season, as the Lakers will be looking for the 3-0 season series sweep.
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