SAN ANTONIO — It would hard to be say which was an uglier scene: blood streaming from Russell Westbrook’s head, his face a mask of rage – or the Lakers’ porous defense which allowed 138 points.
Saturday night wasn’t the way the Lakers want to play, but they need wins any way they can get them.
Three things worth remembering came out of the Lakers’ third tangle with the Spurs: Westbrook’s tussle with San Antonio big man Zach Collins, a season-high 39 points from LeBron James in All-Star scoring form, and a win – never mind the eye-popping 143-138 final score.
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The Lakers won their fifth game in their last six, continuing to beat some of the league’s bottom-feeders including the Spurs (losers of 13 of their last 14 games). They did it without Anthony Davis, who has been electric in recent weeks, but without their franchise big man, the defense took a huge step back allowing the Spurs to shoot 50.5% from the floor and garner 17 offensive rebounds that made the game more suspenseful than it probably should have been.
“Some of the things we can control, we gotta be better at, but we was able to find a way to win,” said James. “You gotta be able to find some good with the bad throughout the course of any game that you play in.”
A lot of the good was James’ own doing. After putting up some of the least efficient shooting numbers of his career to start the year, the 37-year-old was able to drain shots from all over the floor: 11 for 21 from the field, 7 for 12 from deep and (perhaps most surprising) 10 for 10 from the free throw line.
James scored 14 of his points in the fourth quarter, a track meet that saw the Lakers and Spurs combine for 78 points. Dennis Schröder scored 21 points for a season high in the starting lineup, and Lonnie Walker IV added 13 of his 19 points in the decisive last frame, helping the Lakers pull out a close game that they led by as much as 16.
Embedded in the win are some ugly numbers. San Antonio, without three of its best big men in the final quarter, managed to score 25 second-chance points thanks to offensive rebounding, and it wound up with a 66-44 edge in points in the paint. They also owned the Lakers’ in transition, scoring 39 points on the fast break.
Coach Darvin Ham was more relieved to win than frustrated by those shortcomings, but he added that defense remains the principle he wants the Lakers to identify with, which is hard to do when you allow 138 points.
“When you’re able to score the ball it covers up for a lot of mistakes,” he said. “But we can’t depend on that night-in and night-out.”
The Lakers looked to be in for a long night dealing with Jakob Poeltl, the sturdy 7-footer who quickly went to work in the paint without Davis to deter him. In 10 minutes, he accrued 12 points and 9 rebounds. But after his last field goal, a driving dunk, Poeltl went to the locker room before eventually being ruled out with quad soreness. The depth took a further hit without Jeremy Sochan, who also left in the second quarter with right quad pain.
That left Collins before a third-quarter scuffle with Westbrook. The big man’s arms crashed down on Westbrook’s face, opening a cut on his head. Westbrook rose ready to fight back, but James and other teammates quickly helped separate them. Collins was ejected for a flagrant 2 foul after a lengthy review.
Westbrook didn’t need stitches afterward: His cut was glued together and he checked back in the game, finishing with 11 points, 8 rebounds and 6 assists. He said he was relieved his teammates kept the situation from escalating (especially considering Patrick Beverley is already serving a three-game suspension for a tussle in Phoenix).
“Initial reaction, obviously is to hop up and kind of see what’s going on,” Westbrook said. “But once I’m bleeding all over the place I was able to calm down and take care of that, and I moved forward.”
Westbrook had no problem with seeing the court clearly earlier in the night, when he found James on a double-lob alley-oop. James threw it high to Westbrook, hoping for a pass back.
“Russ being an elite passer on this team, an elite passer in this game for quite a while, I figured I’d keep trailing and see if he’ll throw it back up,” James said. “He did, and I was able to reward that.”
It was one of the highlights from the evening worth remembering for the Lakers, who next face Indiana at home on Monday.