Coming off three straight impressive blowout victories, the Los Angeles Lakers traveled east and looking to keep things rolling when they took on the Charlotte Hornets on Monday night.
The Lakers have had a lot of success against below .500 teams this season and that continued in this one as they were able to pick up a 112-107 victory over the Hornets to improve their record to 26-18.
The Lakers were locked in defensively to start this one and they were able to turn that into offense, jumping out to an 8-0 lead.
LeBron James and Anthony Davis went into attack mode and Max Christie hit a corner triple as the Lakers quick stretched the lead to double digits. They kept pouring it one from there with Christie finding Davis on an alley-oop to extend the advantage to 21-5, forcing a Charlotte timeout.
Davis was doing everything early and L.A. kept pouring it on. He had a double-double in the first quarter alone with 21 points and 11 assists with the Lakers taking a 39-19 lead into the second.
LaMelo Ball tried to get his team back into it with a pair of triples but he then rolled his ankle after tripping on Jarred Vanderbilt. While he was forced to go to the locker room and was eventually ruled out, Miles Bridges threw down a huge dunk to cut Charlotte’s deficit to 14.
The Hornets kept chipping away and with the Lakers continuing to struggle offensively, they cut their deficit to single digits at 59-51 going into the halftime locker room.
After a quiet second quarter, Davis was aggressive to start the third, looking much more like the first quarter version of himself. The Hornets stayed hot from deep though and cut their deficit to six before the Lakers responded with another run.
That was of course led by Davis, who was the only source off offense for long stretches of the game. He had 13 points in the third quarter and the Lakers went into the fourth leading 86-77.
With Davis on the bench, the Hornets scored seven straight points to begin the fourth quarter and all of a sudden it was a two-point game. Turnovers continued to plague L.A. but James tried to restore order with a bucket and pair of alley-oops to Jaxson Hayes.
Davis then came back in and had another putback to get the lead back to double digits. Christie then completed a four-point play and at that point, the Hornets had seemingly run out of gas.
Bridges had one last run in him with five straight points, but Davis put things away with yet another putback to secure a 40-20 game for the big man. Dorian Finney-Smith then had the exclamation point with a monster poster dunk on Bridges.
Davis wound up finishing with 42 points, 23 rebounds, two assists and two blocks. It’s the fifth 40-20 game of his career.
What’s next for the Lakers
This was the first leg of a road back-to-back for the Lakers as they will now travel to take on the Philadelphia 76ers on Tuesday evening.
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