On February 10, Beijing time, the Lakers challenged the Blazers, who were already in the rebuilding period, in the past period, the Blazers completed a number of transactions, such as CJ, Powell and Covington and other players, they have left the team, the team officially entered the reconstruction stage. From the overall strength point of view, it is clear that the Lakers, which have multiple stars, have an advantage.
However, in this game, the Blazers played very tenaciously, and they always clung to the score in the game, not letting the Lakers pull the lead away. In the third quarter, the Blazers beat the Lakers by 5 points in a single quarter, narrowing the gap to 2 points, and the gap between the two teams was very small.
In the fourth quarter of the game, the Blazers once again played a wave of 15-9 offense in a short period of time, successfully surpassing the Lakers by 4 points and occupying the initiative of the game. At the critical moment, the Lakers used the play of James and Davis to close the score gap to 1 point.
In the final 5 minutes of the game, the Blazers performed well, they stabilized their lead, with 4.8 seconds left in the game, the team still had a three-point lead, and then the Lakers were only able to take foul tactics, and Simmons made two free throws. The game also lost suspense, and finally the Blazers defeated the Lakers 107-105 at home, ending a six-game losing streak, while the Lakers suffered two consecutive losses.
The main players of the two teams in this game: James scored 30 points, 7 rebounds, 7 assists and 3 steals, Davis 17 points, 7 rebounds, 6 assists and 5 blocks, playing an offensive and defensive performance in the game, but it was still difficult to help the team win. Johnson had 11 points, Tucker had 14 points and seven assists, Ariza had six points and five rebounds, Ellington had nine points and Reeves had five points. On the Blazers side, Nurkic had 19 points and 12 rebounds, Simmons had 29 points and 5 assists, Winslow had 11 points, 8 rebounds, 3 assists and 4 steals, Brown had 11 points, and Smith had 7 points, 11 assists and 6 steals.
The result of this game was somewhat surprising, because the Blazers have entered the rebuild, their roster is very incomplete, many core players can not play, and the Lakers' lineup depth is significantly better than the Blazers, they are a team ready to storm the championship this season. But even in this case, the Lakers still could not beat the Blazers in the rebuilding, and the team performed too badly in the final quarter, giving opponents a lot of opportunities to score easily. At the critical moment, the Lakers also failed to seize the opportunity to let the Blazers complete the scoring many times, and finally the Lakers lost by 2 points on the road and suffered two consecutive losses.
For now, the Lakers' problem is difficult to solve, because Westbrook is absent from this campaign, and the Lakers still can't rely on the performance of James and Davis to win the game, from this point of view, the Lakers' current problem is not Westbrook, but because of the team as a whole. The absence of a player can't change the status quo of this team, and for the Lakers management, they need to do a lot of things before the trade deadline, because with the current lineup, it is difficult for them to impact the championship, and the team needs to change the lineup so that they can hope to get back on track.