The Los Angeles Lakers played home to the L.A. Clippers on Wednesday night, hoping to end an 11-game losing streak to their rivals from across the city.
James Harden was recently traded to the Clippers in a huge deal, but he wasn’t ready to play against the Lakers yet. The Lakers were also missing some key players, but it didn’t matter because they were able to come back from being down early on and win 130–125 in overtime to end their losing streak.
Due to sore knees, Taurean Prince didn’t play for the Lakers until the last minute. Cam Reddish started in his place and scored the first basket after stealing the ball and making a move. The Clippers scored six straight points to answer, but D’Angelo Russell made a three to put the Lakers back in control.
To begin, Kawhi Leonard was on fire. He made his first five shots, three of which were three-pointers, giving the Clippers an early 19-11 lead.
With 18 points in the first quarter, Leonard continued to have a great start to the game. As things were getting worse, the Lakers made back-to-back three-pointers to end the first quarter and cut their lead to 37-24 going into the second.
Russell Westbrook made a long jump shot to start the scoring in the second quarter against his old team. The Lakers started to get closer after that, though. Reddish made a three-pointer, and then LeBron James went on the attack, cutting the Los Angeles lead back to ten points.
The Clippers went on another run after a break, though, because the Lakers were still having trouble on defense. James scored 17 points in the first half to help the Lakers stay in the game, but the Clippers still led 61–48 at halftime.
At the start of the second half, Paul George and Russell each made two straight baskets for their teams. From there, the Lakers started to make progress again. Davis made a three-point play to cut the lead back to ten points.
Russell kept making plays for himself and other players, and Reddish did a good job of slowing Leonard down. Austin Reaves finally scored two baskets, and then Christian Wood made a three-pointer that suddenly pulled the Lakers within one.
Max Christie made two free throws after Russell Westbrook turned the ball over, giving the Lakers their first lead. They would go into the fourth quarter ahead 87-85. In a great third quarter, the Lakers beat the Clippers 39–24.
George hit back-to-back threes to start the fourth quarter and give the Clippers the lead again. From there, the Lakers’ rough play took over because the Clippers couldn’t stop hitting. By the middle of the quarter, Russell had made another three-point shot, giving the Lakers their biggest lead at 103-97.
The Lakers held on to a good lead until the end of the fourth quarter. That’s when the Clippers had to make one last run to avoid losing. But Westbrook then lost the ball, which let Davis dunk it while running away.
The Clippers fought until the very end. In the last minute, Westbrook made a three-pointer and George made a layup to pull them within four points. Russell missed a three-point shot, and George made his own to tie the game at one point.
Russell made two free throws, bringing the Clippers’ lead back to three points with 18.5 seconds left. After George made all three at the line, the game was tied. George made another deep shot, and Reddish made a silly mistake.
Russell had one more great chance to beat the buzzer, but he missed. The game went into extra time.
After a quiet second half, Leonard got things going again with a bucket to start the extra time. However, George was called for fouling James when he reached out to touch him.
Davis made a simple basket, and then Reaves made a three-point play to give the Lakers a three-point lead again. After that, Reaves made a steal on Leonard and found James for an alley-oop during the transition, which made the crowd at Crypto.com Arena go crazy.
On the other hand, the Clippers answered right away with a three-point play by Leonard, as they did all night. It was tied at one point in the last minute after Reaves made another basket. Leonard then made another three-pointer.
After Reaves made two more free throws, the Lakers finally got a stop when they needed one. Finally, Wood would end the game with a huge putback dunk.