1/31/2021
Dean Daily
Boston Celtics Vs LA Lakers 1/30/2021
Saturday January 30th at 8:30 pm the Boston Celtics hosted their interdivision rivals the Los Angeles Lakers. The Celtics came into the game with a record of 10-7, 4th in the Eastern Conference. The Lakers were coming into the game at 14-6, 3rd in the Western Conference. Each team coming off a loss looking to bounce back. The Lakers had their superstar duo of Lebron James and Anthony Davis back together after Davis missing Thursday night's game against the Detroit Pistons. The Celtics had their young duo of superstars in Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown.
Davis returned in action after missing two games in a row to help avoid his team dropping to a three-game losing streak. Davis led the Lakers in scoring with 27 points and 14 rebounds. He led the Lakers with a close one-point victory with a score of 96-95 while Kemba Walker missed the game winning shot in the final seconds.
The game went back and forth as the two teams were trading leads all game long. The Celtics managed to go up by seven points at the end of the third quarter, but the Lakers had a strong fourth out scoring Boston 25-17.
The Celtics young superstar duo is what kept the team in the game as Jayson Tatum had 30 points and 9 rebounds and Jaylen Brown had 28 points, but it was not enough to avoid dropping five out of the last seven games.
As it seemed Boston played with more energy and physicality, they were being brought down by their all-star point guard Kemba Walkers very poor performance. Walker finished with 4 points shooting 1-12 from the field and 0-5 from behind the three-point arc.
Boston had to play the final 10 minutes of the game without their first team all defense guard Marcus Smart as he left with a grade 1 left calf strain in the fourth quarter.
After Smart left the game the Lakers surged as James broke an 85-85 tie with a three pointer with five and a half minutes to play and never gave the lead back.
LA was able to bring their lead to 96-89 but two Kemba Walker free throws and a inside the paint floater by Jayson Tatum and a Lakers turnover gave Boston a chance to comeback.
With 32 seconds to play Boston got the ball out of a timeout and a Jayson Tatum floater was able to bring them down by one 96-95. Boston was then able to steal the ball away and had a chance to win the game. Boston decided to not use its last timeout and instead had to scramble for a shot giving it to Kemba Walker who missed the game winning turnaround jumper over Lakers guard Dennis Shroder.
The Celtics fall to the five seed in the east with a 10-8 record and the Lakers hold their ground with the 3rd seed in the West at 15-6.
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