SACRAMENTO — The test was obvious the minute the Lakers got their schedule for the 2024-25 season.
They would make one trip to Sacramento to face the Kings twice, two games against a team whose pace and physicality have been the difference in multiple years of dominance over the Lakers.
If, somehow, the Lakers were able to beat the Kings in their first meeting at the Golden 1 Center, they’d need to try and do it again a day and a half later.
Through the first few months of the schedule, the Lakers had seemingly exorcised their Kings demons. They beat them in the first week of the season, quieting the noise around Domantas Sabonis’ dominance against Anthony Davis. Thursday, in their first game against the Kings in Sacramento, Davis was terrific in a game Lakers coach JJ Redick called his “favorite” win of the season.
To do it again? That would require sustained attention, sustained effort and sustained execution. It would take, as coach Doc Rivers used to tell Redick’s Clippers teams, the Lakers needing to hang onto the rope in the game of tug-of-war.
Late in the game, there wasn’t much to hang on to. But there was enough.
Rui Hachimura’s offensive rebound after Davis missed a pair of free throws with 12.1 seconds left kept the Kings from getting a chance to tie the score or take the lead, the Lakers hanging on for a gritty 103-99 win.
“It’s a small thing. But just to have mindset and effort to try and get an offensive rebound on a free throw …. just a big-time play,” Redick said.
LeBron James scored 32 points one game after setting the NBA’s all-time minutes record for regular-season games, bullying the Kings on the offensive end while grabbing four steals on the defensive end. D’Angelo Russell scored 20 off the bench, and Davis finished with 15 rebounds, five assists and three blocked shots on a tough offensive night.
“I just wanted to seize the opportunity,” James said. “We had an opportunity to get two quality wins on the road in a hostile environment against a really good team, a team that we have not had much success with over the last couple of years. And I just tried to seize the opportunity and breathe energy into my teammates.”
The Lakers led by as many as 10 points late in the fourth quarter, before the game started to slip through their hands. Blown coverages on defense, bad offensive possessions and missed free throws put the Kings within two late when the Lakers were gifted a chance to put the game away. First, a close out-of-bounds call went their way. Then Malik Monk, the former Laker, fouled Davis on the inbounds late in the shot clock, saving the possession for the Lakers.
But Davis, like he did earlier this season in a loss against Orlando, missed the clutch free throws. Hachimura, who Redick praised for an improved attention to detail, tapped the second miss back to the Lakers. Austin Reaves got fouled, sank both free throws and the Lakers got another stop for the win.
“I don’t want to say I’m frustrated because I liked both of them. Both in and out,” Davis said of his missed free throws. “I don’t feel like I could have shot it any differently. Ones in the past I was like completely missed either left short or right or long, but both of these in and out. But I know I definitely appreciate Rui with the tip out.
“And my wife even called me and said ‘Rui saved you.’ So … that made me feel like worse. ‘Whose side you on?’ But at the end of the day, Rui got the tip out, AR knocked two down and we were able to get a victory.”
The Kings entered the two-game series with the Lakers having the fifth-most efficient offense in the NBA. After eight quarters against the Lakers, the Kings only could manage 199 points.
In December, the Lakers have the seventh-best defense in the NBA, and over the last four games, no team has been harder to score on.
“Everything that we’re doing defensively, we’ve been physical, we’re talking, we’re communicating, we’re covering for one another,” Davis said. “We’re rebounding. Our coverage is on point. So we’re just flying around doing everything, being gritty, playing desperate on the defensive end.”
The Lakers, who have won three straight, host Detroit on Monday in Los Angeles.
