The Sacramento Kings were the NBA team that the Los Angeles Lakers went on the road to play on Sunday night. The goal for both teams was to get their scores to 2-1.
Many times, the score was tied, so the game had to go into extra time. The Kings won 132-127 in the end.
Because they were careless at the beginning, the Lakers got off to a 7-3 start. Tiger Prince’s 3-pointer was L.A.’s first basket.
The Lakers were able to calm down after Anthony Davis stopped two shots. He then scored with a putback layup. They have had problems getting back on track, though, and that continued early in this game when the Kings went ahead 18–9.
Before the break, the Lakers went on a 6-0 run to get back on track. But the Kings were able to get going quickly and make 3s. Then, with just seconds left in the quarter, JaVale McGee made a huge dunk that got the crowd at home excited. The Kings now have a 41-28 lead.
Early in the second, Christian Wood made back-to-back threes from long-range to get things going. The Lakers’ defense kept doing nothing, though, so it didn’t make much of a difference.
But the Kings finally settled down from deep, and the Lakers started to make progress. Because he was still having a rough start to the season, Austin Reaves missed a few good chances. That being said, Davis made up for it by continuing to lead L.A. in both areas.
They were only down four points at one point, but De’Aaron Fox scored five straight points to end the half badly. After the first half, they were down 66–55.
Early in the third quarter, the Kings were called for four team fouls. The Kings called a break after the Lakers went on a 6-2 run to start the second half. They had extra time for the rest of the quarter. They hit two three-pointers to get back to a 10-point lead, though.
The Lakers have been better with Prince on the team so far this season. First, he led a run that led to Davis’s dunk. Then, he made back-to-back threes.
The Lakers couldn’t get back on track and were behind 87–83 going into the fourth quarter. This was true even though Sabonis and Fox both got their fourth fouls and had to sit out the rest of the third quarter.
At the beginning of the fourth quarter, Rui Hachimura finally got going. He made two 3-pointers that gave the Lakers their first lead. He was slow to begin the season. Before Fox came back and made a key three-point play for his team, they were ahead by five points.
Fox then hurt his ankle and had to take a quick break in the changing room. Then he went back and made a triple, just like James had done before.
It was the worst possible time for the Lakers to lose their cool. At one point, they were down six points because they missed seven straight shots. LeBron broke the run with a dunk.
With one second left in the game, Davis tied it with a putback dunk. But Gabe Vincent then fouled Fox in a silly way, and Fox made both of his free throws. With 13 seconds left, the game was tied again after James drove to the basket and made a simple dunk. Keegan Murray missed a three-point shot with one second left, giving the Kings one last chance to win. The game went into OT.
Malik Monk had a pretty calm night before overtime. But he woke up and scored nine points in a row, which put Sacramento four points ahead. James scored five points, but Kevin Huerter made a big three-pointer in the last second to put his team back ahead by five. That was enough to win in the end; the Lakers couldn’t come back.