After getting a few days off, the Los Angeles Lakers returned to the court on Tuesday night, hosting the Detroit Pistons in the penultimate game before the All-Star break.
The Pistons have been playing better basketball in recent weeks, but that didn’t matter as the Lakers came out and crushed them, 125-111.
Rui Hachimura got off to a nice start with seven early points to give the Lakers a 12-6 lead, forcing a quick Pistons timeout.
Austin Reaves and LeBron James started to put on a show out of the timeout with the former drilling a 3. They then each found each other for easy layups in transition, putting the crowd on their feet to extend the lead to double digits.
Spencer Dinwiddie was the first Laker off the bench and immediately picked up a nice assist to Christian Wood. The Lakers got sloppy to end the quarter, however, with the Pistons cutting their deficit to 34-24.
D’Angelo Russell knocked down a 3-pointer to start the second quarter, continuing his recent hot streak. Former Laker Troy Brown Jr., who was traded to the Pistons at the deadline, also connected from deep as he looked to keep his team within striking distance.
Davis and James started taking over from there, finding each other for easy buckets with the Lakers starting to grow their lead again. The guards then got involved as Russell and Reaves each drilled triples and L.A. went into the halftime locker room with a comfortable 71-48 lead.
The Pistons were playing with nice energy to begin the third and were even making some outside shots, getting their deficit to 12 before James restored order with a triple.
After going scoreless in the first half to focus on setting up his teammates, Dinwiddie picked up his first bucket as a Laker towards the end of the third quarter, completing a three-point play. That got him going as he then drained a 3 and then had an assist to get the lead back up to 20 at 99-79 going into the fourth and final quarter.
Before the Pistons had any thoughts of a potential comeback, James knocked down a pair of 3s early in the fourth to effectively put the game out of reach.
While Davis was able to rest the fourth quarter, James played the first half of it before going to the bench for the end of the game with L.A. having it in hand.
Up next for the Lakers
The Lakers have one more game before the All-Star break, traveling to take on the Utah Jazz on Wednesday in the second night of a back-to-back.
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