The test was evident from the moment the Lakers received their schedule for the 2024-2025 season.
They would make one trip to Sacramento to play the Kings twice, two games against a team whose pace and physicality have been the difference in several years of dominance against the Lakers.
If the Lakers could somehow beat the Kings in their first meeting at the Golden 1 Center, they would have to try again a day and a half later.
Through the first few months of the schedule, the Lakers had seemingly exorcised the demons of their king. They defeated them in the first week of the season, quieting the noise surrounding Domantas Sabonis’ dominance against Anthony Davis. On Thursday, in their first game against the Kings in Sacramento, Davis was tremendous in a game that 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 be necessary, as coach Doc Rivers told Redick’s Clippers team, for the Lakers to hold on to the rope in the tug-of-war game.
The Lakers led by as many as 10 points late in the fourth inning before the game began to slip through their hands. After blown coverages, poor offensive possessions and missed free throws, there were only a few threads of that rope left in the Lakers’ hands.
Read more: LeBron James sets another NBA record in the Lakers’ victory over the Kings
It wasn’t much. But they were there.
Rui Hachimura’s offensive rebound after Davis missed a pair of free throws with 12.1 seconds left kept the Kings from having a chance to tie the score or take the lead, while the Lakers held on to a gritty 103-99 victory.
James scored 32 points in one game after setting the all-time NBA minutes record for regular season games, bullying the Kings on the offensive end while picking up 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.
The Lakers, who have won three in a row, host Detroit in Los Angeles on Monday.
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This story originally appeared in the Los Angeles Times.
