Lakers, with stars back together, take on lowly Kings
After closing out February by putting an emphatic end to a three-game losing streak, the Los Angeles Lakers will leap into March with a visit from the Sacramento Kings on Sunday.
The Lakers earned a 129-101 victory over the Golden State Warriors on Saturday that was not diminished in the slightest, even as their opponent was without star Stephen Curry.
Luka Doncic scored 26 points with eight assists for Los Angeles on his 27th birthday, while LeBron James celebrated the occasion with 22 points and nine assists. Austin Reaves added 18 points as Rui Hachimura (illness) missed his second consecutive game.
The Lakers finally have Doncic, James and Reaves together on a consistent basis after all three have been hit by injuries at separate times this season. But on-court cohesion has not come easy with Los Angeles losing home games against the Boston Celtics and Orlando Magic, followed by a road loss to the Phoenix Suns on Thursday.
After shooting just 39.1% from the floor against the Celtics, the Lakers have improved on that number in each of the past three games leading to their 53.3% shooting against the Warriors. Doncic, James and Reaves combined to shoot 56.1% (23 of 41).
"Our back was against the wall after losing the way we have been losing lately," James said on the Spectrum SportsNet broadcast. "We wanted to fix that and started on the defensive end. And then not turning the ball over on the offensive end, we had a really good rhythm."
Los Angeles continues to sit sixth in the Western Conference and in possession of the final automatic berth in the playoffs.
The Kings are the worst team in the NBA at 14-47 but have been distancing themselves from their recent franchise-record 16-game losing streak with victories in two of their past three games.
Precious Achiuwa scored a career-high 29 points with 12 rebounds, Maxime Raynaud had 22 points and Daeqwon Plowden added 19 off the bench as Sacramento earned a 130-121 road victory over the Dallas Mavericks on Thursday.
"We have a good team of playmakers understanding that they're going to get to their spots," said Plowden, who was in just his 18th NBA game over two seasons. "Now it's just me finding windows where I can get out quick (3-pointers) or cuts to the basket or even in transition. It jells well with what we have going on."
In the second game of a back-to-back, Sacramento was without Russell Westbrook (thigh) and Keegan Murray (ankle).
The Kings shot 50.5% from the floor while soaring past their conference-worst average of 110.4 points per game. They won even as the Mavericks shot 55.6% overall and 43.5% (10 of 23) from 3-point range.
Sacramento had a season-low five turnovers. They also forced the Mavericks into 18 turnovers that they turned into 21 points.
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