The Lakers will play two against the woeful Spurs
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The Los Angeles Lakers will look to get back on the road to winning ways when they take on the hapless San Antonio Spurs on Wednesday in the first of two games between the teams in three nights in the Alamo City.
The Lakers travel south for the second of a straight series after suffering a 127-125 loss at Dallas on Tuesday that snapped their season-best four-game winning streak.
Included in that streak was the championship game of the NBA’s inaugural regular season tournament, not a regular season game, but that success didn’t carry over until Tuesday.
Anthony Davis led Los Angeles with 37 points and 11 rebounds against the Mavericks, while LeBron James finished with 33 points, nine assists and eight rebounds. Austin Reaves added 22 points off the bench and Taurean Prince scored 15.
The Lakers outshot Dallas 53.8% to 49.4%, outscoring the hosts 40-36 and making 15 of 29 three-point attempts. However, they made just 12 of 18 free throws. Dallas made 18 of 21 free throws to make up the difference in field goals.
“I’m disappointed we didn’t win, but the way we fought is encouraging,” Los Angeles coach Darvin Ham said. “I’m really encouraged by the way we fought throughout the game to give ourselves a chance.”
The Lakers trailed by 15 points in the third quarter before flipping the switch and taking a two-point lead in the fourth quarter. But Dallas recovered, took the lead for good midway through the final quarter and held on.
The last five games between the Lakers and Dallas have been decided by a total of 13 points. The Spurs enter the two-game series with Los Angeles on a 17-game losing streak, the longest in franchise history.
San Antonio’s most recent setback was a 93-82 loss at Houston on Monday, in which rookie Victor Wembanyama led the team with 15 points and 18 rebounds.
Devin Vassell added 14 points for the Spurs, while Malaki Branham scored 13 points, Keldon Johnson 12 and Cedi Osman 10 off the bench.
San Antonio remained at a season low in total points scored, field goal percentage (.356), three-pointers made (five) and assists (20). “It’s hard to know what to do when you have so many missed shots,” Spurs coach Gregg Popovich said. “It makes things very, very difficult. But they’re evolving in a lot of ways and I just wish they could take a break that way to take a few shots.
Vassell and Johnson combined to go 1 of 18 from 3-point range Monday, while San Antonio shot a season-worst 12.2 percent (5 of 41) from distance.“We had good looks, but we just couldn’t capitalize on it,” Johnson said. “It’s really frustrating. We lost a lot of games that we should have won.
It’s frustrating. We know everything will change. We know we put a lot of work into this. We believe in each other.” San Antonio forced the Rockets into 16 turnovers in the loss, but scored just four fewer points than takeaways.
The Spurs announced Tuesday that backup center Charles Bassey will miss the remainder of the season after tearing his left anterior cruciate ligament while on assignment with Austin of the G League on Sunday.
Field-level average Field Level Media 2023 – All rights reserved This story was originally published December 13, 2023, 1:48 am.
