The Los Angeles Lakers closed out the Las Vegas Summer League on Saturday night, taking on the Dallas Mavericks in their fifth and final game.
The Lakers played eight Summer League games overall and were looking to finish 5-3 with a win over the Mavericks, and they did exactly that by earning the 95-84 victory.
Cole Swider has been shooting the ball well all of Summer League and that continued in this one as he opened the scoring with a deep three. He then had a nice backdoor cut and fellow rookie Max Christie found him for a dunk, which was followed by a transition dunk by Nate Pierre-Louis to give the Lakers an early 12-2 lead.
The Mavericks came into this game winless in Las Vegas and looked just as bad to start this one, trailing 26-16 through one quarter.
As has been the case all summer, Javante McCoy provided an offensive spark for the Lakers off the bench at the beginning of the second quarter, scoring in a variety of ways. Vitto Brown also had his best outing, attacking the offensive glass to lead a 9-0 run and extend the Lakers’ lead to 39-19.
McCoy and Swider continued to find easy buckets offensively, and Shareef O’Neal even got in on the action in his first start of the summer. The Lakers were able to maintain their big lead and went into the locker room up 58-38.
Dallas finally competed a bit to begin the third quarter with second-round draft pick Jaden Hardy being the driving force, cutting their deficit down to 11.
The Lakers answered with five straight points though after a layup by Jay Huff and another three by Swider.
While the Mavericks worked their deficit down to just seven, former South Bay Lakers Huff and Mason Jones took over from there with the latter making a circus shot that should’ve been an and-one.
L.A. led by 13 after three quarters, looking to hang on in their final quarter of the summer.
The Mavericks cut the lead back down to five before the Lakers went on another little run to get it back to double digits. That was as close as Dallas would get with L.A. earning the win to finish the Las Vegas Summer League at 3-2.
Swider finished the summer with another strong performance, scoring 16 points on 6-of-9 shooting and 4-of-6 from deep.
Have you subscribed to our YouTube channel? It’s the best way to watch player interviews, exclusive coverage from events, participate in live shows, and more!
