The Los Angeles Lakers continued their road trip on Monday evening, traveling to take on the Detroit Pistons.
After beating the Toronto Raptors on Friday, this marked an opportunity for the Lakers to build off it and earn their second straight road win. They were unable to do so though, suffering a disappointing 115-103 loss to fall to 4-3 on the season.
Anthony Davis scored the first three points of the game, but the Pistons otherwise came out hot with Tobias Harris, Tim Hardaway Jr. and Cade Cunningham all connecting from deep to take a 15-8 lead.
After a Lakers timeout, they got back to feeding Davis the ball and responded with a quick 7-2 run. It was the Pistons that closed the first quarter strong, however, to take their biggest lead at 33-22 as the Lakers got careless with the basketball.
The Lakers were struggling to keep up with the Pistons’ speed and athleticism as Jaden Ivey was getting easy looks for himself and his teammates. L.A. looked disinterested as Detroit continued to pour it on, stretching the lead all the way to 20.
James and the Lakers were able to close the half strong, notable beating the buzzer with a triple, to cut their deficit to 67-53 going into the locker room.
Not much changed to start the third quarter for the Lakers as they turned it over on their first possession. While Davis was doing his part offensively, the L.A. defense continued to struggle getting stops, which made it tough to make any sort of run.
That run finally came to end the quarter though as the Lakers locked in defensively while James and Reaves made some shots. After closing the quarter on a 14-2 flurry, the Lakers cut their deficit to 83-77 going into the fourth. A big reason for the defensive turnaround was the play of Cam Reddish, who got his first real chance of the season at rotation minutes and made the most of it.
The Pistons immediately got their lead back to 11 to start the fourth before Reaves answered with a three-point play. Unhappy with a non-foul call a couple of minutes later, Reaves picked up a technical as frustration was mounting for him and the Lakers.
After rolling his ankle and appearing to be in pain, Davis threw down a lob from James to get the Lakers back within five. Davis continued to be hobbled though and the Pistons had an immediate response as L.A. seemingly just could not get over the hump. Ivey closed out the game for Detroit in what was a really disappointing loss for the Lakers.
What’s next for the Lakers
Now sitting at 2-2 on their road trip, the Lakers will look to end it above .500 when they take on the Memphis Grizzlies on Wednesday before returning home to host the Philadelphia 76ers on Friday.
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