Deandre Ayton and the Los Angeles Lakers continued their five-game road trip against the New Orleans Pelicans on Friday night in their second group play game of the Emirates NBA Cup.
New Orleans was in a rocky place coming in with a 2-9 record and Zion Williamson and other key players sidelined due to injury. Coming off an embarrassing loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder, L.A. needed to bounce back.
Despite the Pelicans making a couple of comeback attempts, the Lakers handled business and pulled away with a few minutes left in the fourth quarter. But during NBA Cup games, point differential is crucial to advancing past group play and Ayton had an opportunity to score an easy bucket in the final seconds but decided not to.
To his credit, most players want to run the clock out as it is the right thing to do from a sportsmanship perspective. But, Ayton was unaware of the implications of not scoring and he apologized to his teammates after becoming knowledgeable about NBA Cup rules, via Khobi Price of the Southern California News Group:
“I was a little confused,” Ayton said. “I didn’t even know. I was like, ‘listen here, bro. I’m just trying to get the dub and get up out of here.’ I didn’t really want to shoot it because I’m like, that’s [Pelicans Coach] Willie Green. I didn’t really want to [rub it in]. Ain’t we just got to win the game. What does it matter about the points?”
The Pelicans scored four points in the final 30 seconds, with Ayton learning postgame about the point-differential tiebreaker.
“Oh, so that’s why Marcus Smart was on my tail like that,” Ayton quipped. “‘Score the ball, DA!’ I was like, ‘Oh!’ I was like, ‘Oh, oh, my bad! All right!’”
He added: “I done messed up. I done messed up. Oh, no wonder. I done messed up. Oh, that’s bad. Oh, that’s bad.”
Currently, L.A. is first place in West Group B with a +19 point differential and hopefully they take care of business in their final two group play games against the L.A. Clippers and Dallas Mavericks so that tiebreakers don’t matter.
After not advancing past group play last year, the Lakers are looking to make a return trip to Las Vegas to potentially win their second NBA Cup.
JJ Redick: Deandre Ayton showing he’s winning basketball player with Lakers
Deandre Ayton has been a great offensive addition to the Lakers so far this season. Friday night was another example of that by putting up 20 points and 16 rebounds on 10-for-11 from the field in 36 minutes.
Head coach JJ Redick is taking notice of Ayton’s production and believes that his starting center is showing that he’s a winning player in the NBA.
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