LOS ANGELES — An NBA team’s identity can be fickle throughout an 82-game regular season.
And the Lakers’ 117-114 loss to the Detroit Pistons on Monday night showed they’re still ironing out their latest one.
Through the first month of the season, the Lakers’ offense carried them to a strong start.
The following month, their defense either kept them in games or outright won them.
Monday’s game looked like more of the former, but without the victory, as the Lakers dropped to 16-13 and saw their three-game winning streak come to an end.
“The bad teams probably go through 20-30 identities – the good teams probably go through 8-12 identities,” first-year Lakers head coach JJ Redick said earlier in this month. “The really good teams probably still go through 3-5 identities. It’s a long season.”
LeBron James had 28 points, 11 assists and 11 rebounds for his eighth triple-double of the season (120th of his career) for the Lakers, but he missed a long 3-point attempt at the buzzer. Anthony Davis had 19 points, 10 rebounds, six rebounds, two blocked shots and two steals on a night when the Lakers turned the ball over 20 times and saw the physical, scrappy Pistons take 18 more shots from the field.
Max Christie scored a season-high 17 points on 6-of-10 shooting from the field (3 for 4 from 3-point range).
The Lakers trailed 117-106 with just over three minutes remaining, struggling to slow a Detroit offense that found its rhythm from behind the arc, knocking down 11 of its first 26 3-pointers before missing the last four.
The Lakers made a comeback attempt when Rui Hachimura assisted Christie on a 3-pointer to cut their deficit to eight and James converted a three-point play on a fadeaway jumper, knocking down the free throw to cut the deficit to five points.
James made a layup to cut the Lakers’ deficit to three with 46 seconds left.
It looked like Davis was going to head to the free-throw line for a pair of shots after Tobias Harris was called for a shooting foul against Davis on his roll to the rim after James drove into the paint and collapsed Detroit’s defense.
But J. B. Bickerstaff challenged the call and the play was overturned on video review, giving the Pistons possession with a three-point lead and 28.9 seconds remaining.
The Lakers forced Cade Cunningham (20 points, 10 assists, five rebounds) to miss a step-back 3-point attempt to regain possession with four seconds left.
But James missed an open 30-footer on an after-timeout play to seal the loss.
Malik Beasley scored 21 points off the bench (five 3-pointers) to lead the Pistons. Jaden Ivey added 18 points as Detroit beat the Phoenix Suns and the Lakers on the road to win consecutive games for the first time since Nov. 17 and just the third time all season.
More to come on this story.
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