The Los Angeles Lakers were going for their fourth straight win when they took the court against the Chicago Bulls on Thursday night at Crypto.com Arena.
LeBron James missed the previous three games but was back in action for this one, although some other key pieces were out for the Lakers. Despite that, they were able to take care of business against the undermanned Bulls, coming away with a 142-130 victory.
It was a great start for the Lakers as Austin Reaves kicked things off with a triple and then Rui Hachimura and Deandre Ayton both scored inside to go up 7-0.
After a Bulls timeout, they got going with four straight points. From there, Luka Doncic got hot, hitting back-to-back triples to extend the lead. The Lakers went ice cold to end the first quarter, however, and the Bulls went on a run to tie it at 26 going into the second.
Chicago took its first lead early in the second quarter, although Deandre Ayton went to work on the offensive glass with a putback to respond. From there though, the Bulls continued to hit outside shots and opened up a seven-point lead.
Doncic then returned to the game and got the Lakers going again with a three-point play and triple. Doncic had 10 straight points for his team and then found Ayton for an alley-oop.
Doncic and Matas Buzelis were talking some smack back and forth, which only fueled the Lakers star to keep scoring. The young Bulls wing was doing what he could to keep up, but L.A. regained the lead at 67-62 going into the halftime locker room.
After a quiet first half, James opened up the third quarter with a monstrous dunk in transition. He started to get going from there, while Hachimura and Doncic both hit 3s to get the lead back to double digits.
L.A. continued to pour it on from there as their Big 3 was scoring at will. Doncic and Reaves hit back-to-back triples and James followed it with another dunk to extend the lead to 22.
The Bulls could’ve packed it in from there, but to their credit, they kept playing hard and ended the third quarter on a run to get their deficit all the way down to 108-98.
The Lakers’ lead was just seven early in the fourth when Reaves hit a deep triple and then a midrange jumper. L.A. regained control from there as the advantage got back up to 16 and they cruised to the easy win from there.
Doncic capped off his night with two more triples and wound up finishing with 51 points, 10 rebounds, nine assists, three steals and one block.
What’s next for the Lakers…
The Lakers will wrap up their homestand with a big matchup against the Denver Nuggets on Saturday before going out on the road for six games.
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