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Three straight wins is a streak, and the Los Angeles Lakers are officially on one following Sunday's 150-145 victory over the Indiana Pacers at Crypto.com Arena.
The offensive explosion marked the Lakers' highest point total since the 1986-87 campaign, which ended in a championship.
Not only did the Purple and Gold improve to 39-32 with their third consecutive win, they notched their first victory of the season without D'Angelo Russell on the court. The guard was out with a non-COVID illness, which seemed to be a problem since his team was previously 0-5 without him in 2023-24.
So much for that.
Indiana had no answers for Anthony Davis, who finished with 36 points, 16 rebounds, three assists, two steals and one block. It was far from a one-man show, as LeBron James notched a double-double of 26 points, 10 assists and five rebounds.
Spencer Dinwiddie (26 points and five assists on 8-of-11 shooting from the floor) and Austin Reaves (25 points, eight assists and five rebounds) also picked up the slack for the absent Russell.
The combined effort helped Los Angeles overcome an excellent showing from Pascal Siakam (36 points and 12 rebounds) and earned plenty of praise from social media:
Mike Trudell @LakersReporterAnother fantastic game from Anthony Davis. <br><br>B2B crunch time buckets have LAL in good shape at 142-134 with 55.7 seconds left. Davis has 36 points on 15 of 21 FG's and 5 of 5 FT's, with 16 boards, 3 assists, 2 steals and 1 block.<br><br>AD had 41, 20, 5 and 4 in the IST Final vs. Indy.
Dr. Rajpal Brar, DPT @3cbPerformanceDinwiddie's ball IQ is so impressive. Can adapt to whatever you need him to do - whether that's playing off ball and being the glue or facilitating on the ball like tonight - not easy to do at all. Swiss Army knife player<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/lakers?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#lakers</a>
The final score was closer than the Lakers would have preferred considering they entered the fourth quarter with a 116-99 advantage. They were dominant in the middle of the game with a combined 86 points in the second and third quarters but allowed the Pacers to climb back within striking distance.
Yet James and Davis each connected on important shots in crunch time before Reaves hit six free throws in the final minute. Every one of the shots from the charity stripe proved critical, as Tyrese Haliburton's three-pointer cut the deficit to three in the last 30 seconds before the Lakers put the finishing touches on the win.
And an important win it was with the red-hot Houston Rockets suddenly making things interesting in the Western Conference play-in tournament picture.
Houston is just one game behind the 10th-seeded Golden State Warriors but still 3.5 games back of the ninth-seeded Lakers thanks to the latter's own three-game winning streak.
Sunday's effort was defense-optional for much of it, but there was still enough star power and offensive fireworks on the floor to keep the momentum rolling heading into Tuesday's showdown on the road against Giannis Antetokounmpo and the Milwaukee Bucks.
