Dance music blared as the crowd took turns making their way through a timeout in the fourth quarter. Lakers coach JJ Redick grew frustrated after another clean look for the Spurs allowed them to pull within a point.
Up until that point, the game had worked.
With the NBA Cup raising the stakes, Anthony Davis and Victor Wembanyama dueled. The teams traded and lost leads by double digits. And when LMFAO was up to 11 midway through the fourth, the NBA had exactly what it wanted: a November basketball game that mattered.
The crowd was buzzing with every possession, with a Wembanyama diving out of a lob and roaring at one end. Clutch from Davis on the other end, leading to a collective groan.
That’s how it went deep into the final minute, with the Lakers making the biggest plays in the final seconds of a 120-115 win.
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“You can play a game like that on the road, especially when we’re struggling on the road,” Davis said. “To come into this locker room at the end of the game and get the win, I mean, it was phenomenal. Taking steps in the right direction.”
Davis, who scored 40 points, worked from the block with Wembanyama on his hip and the shot clock running down, but found a cutting LeBron James for a layup that helped ice the win.
“It was a big ask for our team to know that we can do the whole thing,” James said. “And it doesn’t always have to be in early transition or it doesn’t always have to be just the ball in my hands and we isolate or whatever the case may be.”
Six different Lakers scored in double figures, with James clapping his hands emphatically and Davis holding the ball in the air at the final horn.
“That’s what we want to do,” Davis said. “We want to be just as good a road team as a home team. And we can’t do that if we don’t come out and compete. We were just a different team when we were on the road. The way we compete, share the ball, play together at home is completely different than when we come to the other side of the road. So that’s what we did tonight.”
On a night where he tied for the fifth-most played NBA regular-season game ever, James figured out a way to do the incredible.
In his 22nd NBA season, James first figured out a way to do something.
After triple-doubles in the Lakers’ wins over Philadelphia, Toronto and Memphis, James did it again on Friday in San Antonio.
He finished with 15 points, 16 rebounds and 12 assists. The Lakers won each of those four games.
The Lakers were without starting forward Rui Hachimura, who missed the game with a sprained ankle. The Lakers started rookie Dalton Knecht instead.
Their bench, one of the team’s most obvious weaknesses this season, played its best game. Max Christie, back in the rotation with Hachimura out, scored a season-high 11 points. Gabe Vincent, who was in a slump to start the season, had six points and three steals.
Both helped turn the game around in the first half as the Lakers erased a 12-point deficit.
“I think he has a lot of confidence in a lot of us and I think he certainly has a lot of confidence in me and I can appreciate that about being a head coach,” Christie said of his second chance. “I know, you know how I can play and I think tonight was a really good example of that if I just play freely and play the way I know I can play instead of just trying to do things complicate.”
The team plays again on Saturday evening in New Orleans.
Read more: What motivates Lakers in their NBA Cup title hunt? “I mean, $500,000 is $500,000.”
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This story originally appeared in the Los Angeles Times.
