After the Lakers began their season with two straight wins for the first time since 2010, LeBron James stood in front of his locker and said the key to the Lakers season would be looking, more often than not, for Anthony Davis to lead the way.
“It’s very important that he’s the main focal point for us every single night,” James said defiantly Friday. “We know what he’s going to do defensively, but offensively we have to find him in multiple places on the floor throughout the whole game. And we’ve done that through two games.”
So about game three …
With the Lakers having fully coughed up a 15-point lead and the Sacramento Kings doing what they always seem to now do to the Lakers, James reminded everyone that he, too, can be a focal point.
In four minutes of almost perfect basketball from the Lakers’ 39-year-old star, he scored 14 points and assisted on another two. The stretch, which came during a 21-0 run to start the fourth quarter, pushed the Lakers to yet another win, this time 131-127 over the Kings.
James finished with 32 points, 14 rebounds and 10 assists, his play early in the fourth quarter putting the Lakers in position to beat the Kings for the first time since Jan. 7, 2023.
Read more: Dominant Anthony Davis helps Lakers wipe out 22-point deficit to defeat Suns
And the other focal point, Davis, he closed them out.
With Sacramento pushing back to the James-led run, Davis re-entered the game and continued his early-season dominance. He attacked Domantas Sabonis at the rim and iced the game with a three-pointer and a split-trip to the free-throw line, his only miss in the fourth quarter of a 31-point night.
Davis and James combined to make all 11 of their fourth-quarter shots, combining to score 30 points in the quarter.
All five starters finished in double figures with Rui Hachimura scoring 18 to go with nine rebounds, Austin Reaves adding 16 points, seven rebounds and six assists, and D’Angelo Russell contributing 16 points and five assists.
Before the game, Lakers coach JJ Redick acknowledged that early-season sample sizes haven’t come close to reaching meaningful levels. Still, he’d been encouraged by the Lakers low turnover rates.
Then Saturday, the Lakers coughed it up 19 times leading to 25 Sacramento points.
But like they did in wins against Western contenders Minnesota and Phoenix, the Lakers found other ways to tip things to their advantages.
Saturday, they grabbed 13 more rebounds than the Kings and ended up with four more shots despite turning it over five more times than Sacramento.
And while Sabonis had a triple-double with 29 points, 12 rebounds and 10 assists, and De’Aaron Fox had 28 and 10 assists, the Lakers’ stars were just better.
The Lakers now head on a five-game trip beginning Monday in Phoenix with stops in Cleveland, Toronto, Detroit and Memphis before returning to Los Angeles.
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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
