The Lakers, without LeBron James (groin), dispatched the Spurs in the rescheduled game from Jan. 11. The Spurs had to work hard on offense with suboptimal results while the Lakers made it look easy most of the time.
It briefly seemed as if it could be one of those nights where the understaffed underdog kicks butt because the other team didn’t take them seriously. The Spurs were up 9-2, but the hosts retaliated with a bombardment of treys to seize the lead they rode until the end. The Spurs played hard for a while, but it didn’t matter because it was a talent mismatch.
The first quarter ended with the Spurs down 32-22 as they made one shot in six tries in the lane. Frame two kicked off with Jarred Vanderbilt slamming a vicious dunk over Sandro Mamukelashvili, which was as inspiring as it was a crowd-pleaser. Then Dalton Knecht, Austin Reaves and Dončić lashed the Spurs, but Vassell kept them from flatlining with his jumper.
The Spurs were down 14 at halftime and failed to generate any pressure in the paint, scoring 14 points, and shooting a wack 47 percent in the lane, as the Lakers backline length continued bothering the Spurs. Furthermore, the first sign the Spurs started to check out mentally was when they gave up multiple back cuts for scores and they didn’t close out to Reaves and Jordan Goodwin at the arc in the third quarter.
Jeremy Sochan scored five baskets out of intermission, but the rest of the squad was lacking as none made more than one shot and the Lakers took a 19-point lead going into the fourth after being up as much as 28. Next, Sochan got into a minor altercation with Vanderbilt in the fourth quarter and both were ejected. The team cranked up the intensity after that, but it wasn’t enough, even with an efficient fourth quarter.
**Takeaways:**
* This was a tune-up game for the Lakers. They were able to get into the lane easily, shooting 8.8 percent above average at the rim and in the paint nonrestricted area by 5.9 percent. The Spurs only showed a bit of life to start the fourth quarter because the hosts eased off the accelerator.
* Chris Paul and LeBron James are the two oldest players in the league. The former helped keep the Spurs in striking distance, hitting a pair of threes in the first quarter but faded as the game went on. Vassell was one of the other primary scoring options, making buckets at short, mid and long range on the catch and dribble. He didn’t start to slow down until the third quarter.
* The Spurs’ half-court attack was neutralized to 85.7 points per 100 possessions, good enough for the 20th percentile, per Cleaning the Glass.
* Dončić ate the Spurs’ schemes, finding openings for snipers and giving his matchup fits. His strength creates separation and the Spurs have no answers for it. When the defense stayed on his hip, he made a distance floater and got to the line 13 times, making 10 shots. Guarding Reaves was also difficult because he moves well without the ball and he has elusive moves with a nice first step on the dribble.
* Castle stayed in the first quarter with two fouls, continued playing aggressive defense on Dončić and picked up his third not even a minute later. He didn’t check back in until four minutes into the second quarter, as the Lakers were up nine. He was off-target for a while and had to guard the weaker offensive options to keep the penalties down. His best spurt of the game came late in the first half, as he made a putback and 3-pointer on consecutive possessions. Progress was quickly halted into the third quarter as he committed his fourth foul by going after a loose ball. He finished with 23 points but the fouls prevented him from having a steady impact.
* Jeremy Sochan was the team’s top bench scorer with 15 points on 77.8 percent shooting. Coach Mitch Johnson trusted him more than Harrison Barnes and Bismack Biyombo.