The Los Angeles Lakers squeak by the Western Conference leaders Utah Jazz
Los Angeles, California-- Before the season started, if you told me the Utah Jazz and the Phoenix Suns would have the two best records in the NBA, I would have called you insane.
But here we are, with about a month left before the playoffs, and it's quite evident who the Lakers need to get through if they want to repeat this season.
My apologies, guys, let me not get ahead of myself because this Lakers team has a long way to go before they ever think about repeating.
In the meantime, it was a nice win over an extremely understaffed Utah Jazz squad.
With three All-Stars and a key bench player all sitting out, Utah tried just about anything in a 127-115 loss in Los Angeles.
Amazingly, it almost worked as Quinn Snyder tried almost everything in the book to get his team a win.
“More than experimentation, we were just trying to feel the game and looking for different combinations that could help us,” he said. “We’re just trying to find different guys that could make plays and kind of connect together.”
Jordan Clarkson led Utah with 27 points against his former team. The ageless Ersan Ilyasova added a season-high 20 points before fouling out in overtime and Joe Ingles had 20 points and a career-high-tying 14 assists. Bojan Bogdanovic had 19 points as Utah's two-game winning streak ended.
"We're missing four pretty important guys," Ingles said. "For most of the game, we did a pretty good job. We were one stop away from winning the game."
But Joe, that's the nature of sports, and I'm not sure if you forgot, but the Lakers were missing some important players of their own.
The Lakers had new addition Andre Drummond and Markieff Morris back in the lineup, along with Kyle Kuzma and Schröder.
Dennis Schröder hit the tying basket to force overtime and finished with 25 points as he blew by Royce O'Neale for a layup with 3 seconds remaining to tie it at 110.
From everything that resulted in the victory Saturday, Schroder’s display stands out, the lightning-fast guard leaving defenders in the dust for layups on his way to a 25-point, eight-assist, six-rebound game — plausibly his best performance in a win this season.
Astonishingly, he is doing this after nursing through several injures, including an infected foot caused by a cut between his toes.
“I’ve been playing that [way] my whole career. I’m like that. I’m built like that,” Schroder said. “It don’t matter what situation I’m in, I’m going to do the same thing.”
The Lakers were remarkably lucky to pull this game out after playing an absolutely miserable fourth quarter to let the Jazz back in the game.
Andre Drummond totaled 27 points and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope had 25 points for the Lakers, who squandered a 14-point lead early in the fourth before outscoring Utah 17-5 in the extra session.
"We clicked on all cylinders and we didn't allow adversity to get us out of our game," Drummond said. "The chemistry is getting there."
While Anthony Davis likely won’t play when the teams meet again Monday, he’s very close to a return. LeBron James will follow, fortifying the team as they hit the final lap of the regular-season marathon.
Once the team is fully healthy, many teams across the NBA will soon realize how scary the Lakers are at full strength. All they have to do before the regular season ends is stay healthy, which is easier said than done.