Austin Reaves throws a cold "clutch", saving the LA Lakers from a familiar scenario
With the lead of LeBron James, the Los Angeles Lakers held a 61-49 advantage at halftime, 12 points apart. But this number was soon leveled by the explosion of Bojan Bogdanovic, who broke his personal record with 25 points in the third half.
The last half showed that the Los Angeles representative was a more experienced team when making good use of the opportunity, imposing a play style and leading up to the score (maintained at 5-8 points).
But just 1 minute of negligence by the Lakers created an opportunity for the Pistons to revive. Jaden Ivey, Alec Burks and Bogdanovic scored 6 points to bring the score from 119-111 to 119-117 with 35 seconds remaining.
It seemed that the Lakers would fall into a familiar spiral when they lost their advantage and let the opponent come back, but that scenario did not happen.
LeBron James (scored 13 points in the fourth half) decided to play as a team, breaking in and then passing out to Austin Reaves in an empty position.
Taking full advantage of this opportunity, the young Lakers pitcher successfully made a 3-pointer to "finish" his opponent, putting LA ahead by 5 points with only 12.4 seconds left in the game.
"When you're on the field with LeBron, you need to be absolutely ready because the ball can come in for a long throw at any time," Austin Reaves said of LeBron James' pass that gave him the winning 3-pointer. win.
“I have 100% confidence in his decision, believing that LeBron will be able to lead the team to victory. I'm happy that LeBron also put a lot of faith in me to make the decisive pitch."
It was James' fifth assist of the game, coming with 35 points (14-24 FG) and five rebounds in 37 minutes. Right next to the "king" is Anthony Davis with 34 points, 15 rebounds and especially 7 assists.
The trio of Lonnie Walker (18 points, 4-6 3PT), Russell Westbrook (11 points, 9 assists) and Austin Reaves (9 points, 3-5 3PT) are the remaining outstanding names.
On the Detroit Pistons side, Bojan Bogdanovic not only had the most explosive half of his career, but he also led the home team with 38 points (6-12 3PT). Four other Pistons players scoring above 10 include Jaden Ivey, Marvin Bagley III, Alec Burks and Saddiq Bey.
As a young team with minutes of play being prioritized for the "raw gems" that need to be honed, Detroit is easy to fall into missed upstream matches like this.
They have the youth and spirit to close the gap, but then the experience is what they lack to play properly and disciplined at the decisive moment.
“Today our players did not defend well and made too many positional errors. At the end of the game, they could not keep their focus and were caught up in the game. This is a common error and we will try to fix it in the near future," coach Dwane Casey added.
This is the third defeat in a row for the Detroit Pistons, and also a victory to break the 3-game losing streak of the Los Angeles Lakers.
In the next outing, the LA team will be back at home to host the number 1 NBA team at this time, the Boston Celtics. The match takes place on Wednesday morning (December 14).
Meanwhile, the Detroit Pistons will be on the way to the match on Thursday morning (December 15), their opponent is the Charlotte Hornets.
