After an impressive shorthanded win on the road over the Sacramento Kings, the Los Angeles Lakers returned home and hosted the Portland Trail Blazers on Monday night.
Given it was their first back-to-back of the season, the Lakers were severely shorthanded with Luka Doncic, LeBron James, Marcus Smart, Gabe Vincent and others out due to injury. That was too much to overcome as they hung with the Trail Blazers for a while before ultimately losing, 122-108.
After dropped a career-high 51 points on Sunday night, Austin Reaves picked up where he left off with the first bucket in this one. He had it going early with 13 points in the first seven minutes to give the Lakers a lead.
When he went to the bench, Deandre Ayton took over offensively with six points against his former team. The offense slowed down from there though and after Jrue Holiday beat the first quarter buzzer, the Lakers trailing 28-24.
Reaves returned to start the second quarter and picked up where he left off, setting himself and teammates up for easy buckets to regain the lead. Others started contributing as Jarred Vanderbilt had a couple of buckets in transition and then Rui Hachimura hit a corner triple.
The second quarter dragged on due to a bunch of foul calls and reviews, but the Lakers hung tough and went into the halftime locker room trailing 57-51.
As has been the case a lot in recent years, the Lakers came out flat to begin the third quarter with the Trail Blazers ripping off an 8-2 run to force a timeout.
Turnovers were an issue for the Lakers as they lacked ball-handlers, but Reaves caught fire again with back-to-back triples and a layup to keep his team within striking distance.
Dalton Knecht, who was quiet in the first half, provided the Lakers some much-needed offense with six straight points. L.A. did a nice job of cutting their deficit down to six, but Portland ended the third quarter on another run to take an 89-77 lead.
The gas tanked appeared to be on empty at that point as the Blazers built their lead to 18. From there, the Lakers could not get enough stops to mount any sort of comeback attempt.
What’s next for the Lakers…
The Lakers will now head back on the road to play the Minnesota Timberwolves on Wednesday night and then the Memphis Grizzlies on Friday, which is their first group play game for the Emirates NBA Cup.
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