The Lakers road romance continues.
The NBA’s best team away from home notched its 21st victory in that condition after defeating the Kings Saturday night, 129-113.
It sure looked like Friday helped Frank Vogel’s squad to knock off some rust, as they came out scorching hot and scored a season-high 81 points in the first half.
Avery Bradley set the tone with incredible accuracy, and many of his teammates had an extremely positive case of FOMO – that is, fear of missing out.
“I think it’s just confidence,” he said. “I haven’t been able to shoot the ball the way I wanted to. Those guys keep confidence in me and I’m just shooting the ball, putting in all the extra work so I was able to make those open shots.”
With LeBron James in facilitator mode, the buckets never stopped coming.
Seven players finished the night in double digits, a handful of them on the back of their excellent outside shooting.
Kentavious Caldwell-Pope went 3-for-6 from downtown for 15 points. Alex Caruso and Danny Green added 3 a piece.
Bradley shined brightest though, nailing a season-high 5 treys after not making more than two in any game this season.
James made sure the offense fired on all cylinders, wrapping up his performance with 11 assists (alongside 15 points and 10 boards) – good for the 92nd triple-double of his career.
Interestingly, the flow of the game was different from what one would’ve expected, as the Kings were lacking their three best centers (Richaun Holmes, Marvin Bagley III, and Dewayne Dedmon).
Sacramento was able to edge the Lakers in points in the paint (46-38), but that proved fruitless as the purple and gold’s shot-making was on a whole another level.
Don’t believe us? Ask Anthony Davis, who had 21 points on just nine shots:
The Lakers also earned their 15th consecutive win in a Western Conference road arena, the most in NBA history.
L.A. improved to 7-0 on the second night of a back-to-back and is now 21-5 away from home.
“I think it’s something that our coach puts the emphasis on,” Bradley said. “Road kill, making sure we’re taking every game seriously. This is a big game for us after losing last night. We want to challenge ourselves on back-to-backs to make sure we play better and learn from our mistakes.”