After losing to the Boston Celtics to snap their eight-game winning streak, the Los Angeles Lakers continued their road trip on Monday night against the Brooklyn Nets.
The Lakers were severely shorthanded in this one without LeBron James, Jaxson Hayes, Rui Hachimura and Dorian Finney-Smith, and that proved costly as they suffered a disappointing 111-108 loss.
Gabe Vincent, who entered the starting lineup with so many guys out, got off to a nice start with 13 early points including a trio of triples to give the Lakers a quick 21-13 lead.
Luka Doncic was getting his teammates involved, setting up Dalton Knecht and Jordan Goodwin, and then getting in on the action himself with a drive to the basket. After Austin Reaves found Knecht to end a dominant the first quarter, the Lakers led 28-16.
Goodwin hit a pair of 3-pointers early in the second quarter, although on the other end of the floor the Lakers struggled to keep the Nets off the offensive glass.
That led to a Brooklyn run and L.A.’s offense also slowed down considerably as they turned the ball over at an high rate. With both Doncic and Reaves not able to get some shots to foul, the Lakers’ lead had vanished and they went into the halftime locker room trailing 48-47.
If the Lakers were gonna get back going offensively then they needed their stars to find a rhythm. But Doncic and Reaves both continued to struggle to begin the third quarter, leading to a 9-1 Nets run with Keon Johnson leading the way to force a Lakers timeout.
After the deficit ballooned to eight, Reaves and Doncic started to get going with the former working his way to the free throw line to get back in the game with a 7-0 run of their own.
While Doncic still wasn’t shooting it well, he had a triple-double midway through the third quarter. A lot of those passes set up teammates like Knecht and Vincent for open 3s, but the Nets were able to match them so the game went into the fourth quarter with them leading 81-79.
The Lakers couldn’t keep Brooklyn off the offensive glass and the deficit again got to seven, forcing another L.A. timeout.
At that point it was gut-check time for L.A. with them trailing by six heading into the final few minutes. Vincent hit another big triple, but former Laker D’Angelo Russell responded with one of his own.
After Reaves banked in a 3, the Lakers needed a stop badly. They couldn’t get a rebound though and the Nets had yet another second-chance score to close out the game.
What’s next for the Lakers
The Lakers will close out their road trip with a tough back-to-back against the Milwaukee Bucks and Denver Nuggets on Thursday and Friday, respectively.
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