LA Lakers Jump Over Shorthanded Philadelphia 76ers, 120-107

The LA Lakers posted their 47th win of the season after defeating the Philadelphia 76ers at Staples tonight, 120-107. Frank Vogel’s side had a marvelous closure of the first half and start of the second, rolling over the guests from the City of Brotherly Love in those moments.

“We were terrible in that first quarter,” said Anthony Davis following the game. “We started getting into the groove offensively once we started playing defense.”

Many believed that the shorthanded 76ers are going to make a surprise and beat the LAL at Staples once again.

Philly was up 44-31 at 8:49 of the second, following Glen Robinson’s three. Until the end of the same period, the home team scored 34 points allowing 10. A 13-2 run in the last 3:40 was vital for the purple and gold.

But the home team didn’t stop there, opening the third quarter with 9 unanswered points, to reach a 21-point advantage. After that, the best thing the 76ers could do is to come down to eight points, 100-92, and that was pretty much it. Though we need to say, that midway through the final sequence, the Lakers too didn’t know how to close the game, but eventually, did break the visitors from Pennsylvania.

The star of the match was without a doubt Anthony Davis, who fully exploited Joel Embiid’s absence. AD played 39 minutes, and during that time he scored 37 points, shooting 13-for-19 from the field, missing just one three-pointer, adding 13 boards, with 4 steals and two blocks. Philadelphia’s players didn’t have a single solution on how to slow Davis at least down.

“Tonight was a good test for us. This team is still one hell of a team, without their two main guys, they can shoot the ball well.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Crz9p9EufIc

LeBron was right behind him with 22 points, and he had 14 assists on top of that with 7 boards.

“We challenge each other between the two of us, and when we do that we hold each other accountable and it trickles down to everyone else,” LBJ said to Mike Trudell.

Apart from these two guys, Dwight Howard scored 11 buckets, while Avery Bradley and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope both had 10.

On the other side, the 76ers played without injured Embiid and Ben Simmons, which was a massive problem. Tobias Harris scored 18 points with 7 boards, shooting 8-for-18 from the field, while Shake Milton wasn’t in the mood as over the previous few days dropping only 12 points, same as Alec Burks.

The guy who led Brett Brown’s unit was Robinson III with 25 buckets, 10-for-15 from the field, and 4 boards.

Lakers (47-13) have to blockbusting games coming up. At first, they await the Milwaukee Bucks on Friday night, and then meet the local rivals the Los Angeles Clippers. Vogel’s side will get a short break with a game against the Nets, before hosting the Houston Rockets and the Denver Nuggets.

Philadelphia (37-25) has two more stops in California before going back home. The first is in Sacramento, who defeated the Wizards tonight, this Friday, and then in San Francisco, two days later. Following these two contests, the 76ers will play five of the upcoming six games at home. At the moment, they are sixth in the East, way below their expectations, and will have a tough time reaching at least the No.4 seed. Besides them, the Indiana Pacers and the Miami Heat are also in the combination, and right now, Philly is 2.5 games behind Erik Spoelstra’s crew.