After a rare span on four days off, the Los Angeles Lakers were back in action on Sunday night as they traveled for a rematch with the Utah Jazz.
The Lakers beat the Jazz in L.A. earlier in the week and were looking to do so on the road with their full roster healthy and available to start. Despite the long layoff, the Lakers did indeed take care of business with a 108-106 victory to improve to 12-4 on the year.
In the second game of his 23rd season, LeBron James was looking spry early with a dunk in transition to kick things off. He then had a sweet dish to Austin Reaves for a layup before Luka Doncic started going to work.
Turnovers have been an issue for the Lakers to start the season and that continued early, although Doncic led a 10-0 run to get them back on track and L.A. led 32-30 at the end of the first.
The Jazz regained the lead to start the second, but James went into attack mode and created some easy buckets for himself and teammates. Doncic then returned and created some magic with by throwing the ball threw Kevin Love’s legs in transition and then to Jaxson Hayes for an alley-oop.
After a triple by Rui Hachimura to close the half, the Lakers took a 62-55 lead into the locker room.
Deandre Ayton was dealing with a right knee contusion and was ruled out for the night, so Jaxson Hayes started the third quarter in his place and kicked off the scoring with a three-point play. The Jazz responded with a run though as the Lakers called timeout trailing 72-68.
Doncic, James and Reaves scored all of the Lakers’ points in the final 10 minutes of the third quarter, regaining the lead at 84-81 heading into the fourth.
The Jazz continued to hang around as the Lakers found themselves in a dog fight. Doncic had enough though as he went back to work from the midrange and then from deep to extend the lead to double digits.
Utah refused to quit though as back-to-back buckets by Lauri Markkanen got their deficit down to just four in the final couple of minutes. After a miss by James, Markkanen hit another triple and all of a sudden the deficit was one.
The Lakers again didn’t score, but this time Markkanen missed despite getting a good look from midrange. It wasn’t over yet though as Doncic missed a free throw to give Utah one final look.
Keyontae George was defended well so had to force one up from the corner, but he missed and the Lakers hung on to win.
What’s next for the Lakers…
The Lakers will now return home and wrap up Emirates NBA Cup group play on Tuesday against the Los Angeles Clippers and Friday against the Dallas Mavericks.
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