The Lakers appeared set to cruise to an easy victory against the Sacramento Kings when they led by double digits in the fourth quarter, but this team hates making things easy. A few barfed up shots, a bit of poor defense and three overtimes later, they had lost, 141-137, to the now eight-win Sacramento Kings.
The Lakers started the game playing decent enough defensively, but looked like they were still dealing with a turkey-fueled food hangover offensively, heading into halftime tied up with the Kings — who were missing key contributors in Harrison Barnes and Richaun Holmes — at 43-43.
The third quarter saw more of the same back-and-forth between the title-hopeful Lakers and likely lottery-bound Sacramento, but a seven-plus-minute, 26-9 scoring run spanning the end of the third quarter to the start of the fourth allowed the Lakers to take a 86-74 run with just nine minutes remaining.
You’d think that would be enough, right? Against the Kings? You know, the team that hasn’t made the playoffs since LeBron James’ third season in the league, when Talen Horton-Tucker was just five years old, and is on their 11th coach in 15 years after firing Luke Walton last week? Those Kings?
You’d think. But never ones to let a game be easy when they could make it hard, L.A. soon allowed an 11-2 run to let the Kings right back into it, and Sacramento ultimately retook the lead at 94-93 on a three from Alex Len with just under four minutes remaining. Then, back-to-back unanswered buckets from De’Aaron Fox and Tyrese Halliburton extended the advantage to 5. The Lakers eventually fired back with baskets from Malik Monk, LeBron James and Russell Westbrook, but were ultimately unable to avoid overtime, where they went back-and-forth with the Kings for two hideous extra periods before allowing an 11-2 run in the third extra frame that let the Kings build enough of a cushion to leave with just their eighth win of the season.
And because of course, Buddy Hield hit the final free throws of the game to ice it. You truly cannot make this stuff up.
Yes, more than that happened. No, I’m not describing all that shit on a holiday weekend. I’m tired. Multi-platinum musician and die-hard Lakers fan Halsey wrote a better summary than I ever could anyway while trapped in an Applebees.
Yes, she was actually trapped in an Applebees trying to finish the game. Yes, this saga was more interesting than that extremely bad and ugly basketball game:
Hopefully she got to go home after the game. Sorry you had to watch that one, Halsey. You are truly one of us.
Now sitting at 10-11 and once again below .500, the Lakers will get Saturday off before hosting Isaiah Stewart and the Detroit Pistons for a rematch at Staples Center on Sunday. This was another inexcusable loss, but I don’t really have new ways to describe all the ways this team has disappointed this season. And given how little effort they often seem to be putting in, I don’t really feel like trying, either.
For more Lakers talk, subscribe to the Silver Screen and Roll podcast feed on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher or Google Podcasts. You can follow Harrison on Twitter at @hmfaigen.
