Well, those last two minutes were definitely interesting. We’ll dive into that in our “stat of the game” below, but in summary, the Lakers won 107-99 to finish 5-2 on their seven-game road trip. They beat the Atlanta Hawks, highlighted by (pesky foul-searching) Trae Young as well as our old friend (enemy?) Rajon Rondo. The Lakers are now 16-6 on the season.
Here’s our recap of the game.
Player of the game – Anthony Davis
The Lakers’ superstar continues to ramp up in this season, scoring 25 points on only 14 attempts, adding some defense as well with three blocks and a steal. He’s starting to put together a string of good games, averaging 25.8 points, 7.8 rebounds, and 1.8 blocks in his last five played. That scoring efficiency is what we’ve grown accustomed to in his time with the Lakers, as opposed to his current season average of 22.2 points on 16.7 attempts per game.
Stat of the game – Game of runs
The Lakers had a 16-0 run to bridge the 3rd and 4th quarters together, highlighted by their 11-0 run to open the 4th quarter. According to Bill Macdonald on Spectrum SportsNet (more on him in a second), this tied their longest run of the season. The lead went up-and-down throughout the quarter, with the Lakers securely holding their lead the entire time. Then, the Hawks came on fire with less than four minutes left in the game, going on an 11-2 run to make it a 98-97 Lakers lead with 1:30 left.
Then…LeBron James happened.
He hit a long, stepback three with 1:12 left to take a 101-97 lead, followed up with a game-icing layup after a steal on the next possession to make it 103-97 with 48.7 seconds left. After some more sloppy basketball after that, the Lakers finished it off with some free throws for the 107-99 win.
Quote of the night – When Bill Macdonald compared the court-side Hawks fan to the “meme with the lady yelling at the cat”
Refs stop the game after a Hawks fan heckles LeBron pic.twitter.com/NsoFjyel97
— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) February 2, 2021
Billy Mac of Spectrum SportsNet had the privilege of calling the scene that occurred courtside, very accurately comparing the Hawks fan to the woman in the meme below. Shout out to that Twitter user for finding/creating a perfect representation of the situation conjured by Mr. Macdonald.
— Juan M Gavia (@Juanteasy) February 2, 2021
What’s next?
The Lakers will finally return home after the 7-game road trip concludes. They’ll be welcomed home with one of their most important Western Conference games to date, facing Nikola Jokic and the Denver Nuggets. Jokic has been extremely impressive this season, as Davis, Gasol, and Harrell will have their hands full Thursday night.
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