Coming off their buzzer-beating win over the Toronto Raptors, the Los Angeles Lakers were back in action on Friday night, continuing their road trip against the rival Boston Celtics.
The Lakers were shorthanded in this one as Luka Doncic and Marcus Smart remained out while LeBron James also did not suit up in the second night of a back-to-back. As a result, the Lakers were blown out by the Celtics from start to finish, suffering a 126-105 loss to drop to 16-6 on the year.
After Gabe Vincent got a triple to fall to kick things off, the Lakers missed six straight shots and the Celtics took advantage to jump out to an 11-3 lead.
The Lakers were playing with tired legs early as they were missing a lot of easy shots with Boston quickly building a double-digit advantage.
Rui Hachimura and Nick Smith Jr. hit back-to-back triples to try to get L.A. going, although the team was clearly playing out of sorts and the Celtics led 39-17 at the end of an ugly first quarter.
After missing his first five shots, Austin Reaves tried to get the Lakers back on track with back-to-back buckets in the paint. Unfortunately, the Celtics were making everything from deep and grew their lead to 49-21, forcing a Lakers timeout.
Vincent, who has had success in Boston going back to his Miami days, tried to chip away with a triple and a pair of free throws. The Lakers continued to be a step slow on loose balls though while the Celtics remained hot to close the half and took a 69-46 lead into the locker room. Reaves was fouled on a 3-pointer to end the half and made all of his free throws, putting a little dent in Boston’s lead.
If the Lakers were gonna get back in the game then they would’ve needed to make a run early in the third and they actually started to get some shots to fall. The only problem was that Jaylen Brown answered them with three straight triples to halt any sort of momentum.
The best stretch of the night for the Lakers was a 9-0 run towards the end of the third quarter led by Reaves. Vincent also continued his strong night with another triple and all of a sudden the Celtics’ lead was down to 97-82 at the end of the third. Reaves had 16 points in the third quarter alone.
With Reaves on the bench, the Celtics began the fourth quarter on a 9-0 run. The gas tank was on empty from there as Boston continued pouring it on to put the game out of reach for good.
What’s next for the Lakers…
The Lakers will wrap up their road trip on Sunday evening against the Philadelphia 76ers before returning home and hosting the San Antonio Spurs in the Emirates NBA Cup quarterfinals.
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