After defeating No.2 in the East, the Milwaukee Bucks on Friday night, the Lakers kept their win streak rolling with a 120-109 win over No.2 in the West, the Minnesota Timberwolves.
LeBron James and Anthony Davis were both questionable coming into tonight’s game, and Minnesota was without Rudy Gobert (hamstring tightness) and Karl Anthony Towns after he underwent surgery for a torn meniscus.
But by game time James and Davis we upgraded to available; they both played– and that’s putting it extremely lightly.
On the eve of his 31st birthday, Davis had a historic night. His 27 points, 25 rebounds, seven steals, five assists, and three blocks cement him as the only player in the history of the NBA to ever garner this stat line in a game. In fact, since the 1983-84 season, the only two players who had 20+ points, 20+ rebounds, and 7+ steals were Hakeem Olajuwon and Charles Barkley.
Head Coach Darvin Ham explained AD’s performance as the big man “just being a monster all night.”
When asked after his performance if he was aware he was making history during the game, AD’s response was a simple, “No.”
LBJ led the team with 29 points, nine assists, and eight rebounds. But he only had eight points at the end of the first half, and at halftime the Lakers were up by just one point. They had been outscored in the paint by two. They shot 66.7% from the field but Minnesota had stuck in the game because of 11 Laker turnovers, lackluster perimeter defense, and their eight second-chance points compared to the Lake Show’s 0.
Naz Reid also held it down for the TWolves in the first, he led the team with 21 first-half points. He was 71.4% from three (5-for-7) and 70% from the field (7-for-10). But Reid only had four more points for the rest of the game and the second half belonged to the Purple and Gold.
James got going early and tipped off the third with a triple, and 18 points to follow in the second half. But still, at the end of the quarter the Lakers were down by one.
Then the game was blown wide open in the final frame when Davis declared this game his. The big fella’s ten offensive boards left everyone stunned—and gave the Lakers a 16-point lead at one point.
“Ten offensive rebounds is crazy,” Austin Reaves said after the game. “I did feel that during the game, anytime we shot and missed he was there to give us another opportunity.”
Reaves finished with 19 points, six rebounds, and four assists, and was the third leading scorer behind the duo that is Bron and AD.
Now, the team has a few days off before they travel up North and reencounter the Kings this Wednesday in a rematch where they’ll be looking for redemption after dropping the game against Sac just a week prior.
Now, six games over .500, in terms of this team becoming one of the best in the league, “We gotta just keep stacking the days,” Coach Ham said after another promising performance this Sunday night.