Without James and Davis Nets Take Out Lakers

One night before Lebron James was scheduled to play at his favorite arena, Madison Square Garden, he took the evening off against the Brooklyn Nets off Broadway.  Lakers All-Star Center Anthony Davis also sat out as he just returned to the team after spending several weeks on the injured list with a foot injury.  For the Nets, it was the tenth consecutive game that they were without their best player Kevin Durant who is dealing with a knee injury.  The two stars, James and Durant, have not faced each other on the court dating all the way back to Christmas Day 2018.

This Lakers-Nets matchup did however feature a pair of first ballot Hall of Famers at the point guard position between Russell Westbrook and Kyrie Irving.  Brooklyn had a 19-point second quarter lead but when Lakers guard Dennis Schroder hit a three pointer with 8:47 remaining in the third quarter the Lakers had come all the way back to take a 60:58 lead.  After a back-and-forth quarter Brooklyn led 85-82 going into the final period, where they dominated the play and won going away 121-104.  Kyrie finished with a game high 26 points while Westbrook had 17.

Nets head coach Jacque Vaughn was impressed by the way his team came back. “We had appropriate fear tonight for this team,” he began. “We stayed with our goal of win the basketball game. The starters got us off to a great start.

The traveled to Boston to take on the Celtics Wednesday night before playing 5 straight games at home. They host Washington, Clippers, Phoenix, Chicago and Philadelphia.