Madison Square Garden was the show to be at last night as the Los Angeles Lakers came into town to face the New York Knicks.
The Lakers entered this matchup coming off a blow out win against the Washington Wizards 142-111. The Knicks have won five straight games and won a blowout win at home 127-97 against the Blazers on Friday night. Karl-Anthony Towns was just announced as an All-Star which was the sixth of his career. LeBron James was also announced which was the 22nd time of his career. James got a welcoming ovation when his name was announced as he loves to play at MSG. The 19,182 fans were ready for tipoff.
The Lakers started the game off with Lebron making a full court pass to Luka Doncic who got the layup to go. That was followed by back to back threes from the Knicks to get the game started. OG Anunoby had a great first quarter where he had 10 points. During a one-minute stretch in the first quarter, Luka had two stepback threes and a lob to Rui Hachimura to put the Garden crowd in awe. Los Angeles was up 33-27 at the end of the first.
In the second quarter Josh Hart and Luka traded back to back threes. Tyler Kolek hit a fadeaway jumper over Luka and then wide open three to put the Garden in a frenzy as the Lakers took a timeout. Towards the end of the quarter Josh Hart had a layup in transition as it was almost blocked by LeBron. The Lakers had a 56-52 lead entering halftime.
In the beginning of the third, Jalen Brunson got the scoring started with a jumper on the elbow. Jake LaRavia blocked Brunson which led to a highlight play where Marcus Smart threw an alley-oop to LeBron which brought oohs and ahh’s at MSG. Karl-Anthony Towns had a putback dunk to force a Lakers’ timeout and this started to hype up the fans. Doncic hit a halfspin stepback three over Landry Shamet and pointed at Spike Lee courtside. Luka also winked, smiled and talked to Lee going up the court. New York made three straight threes to end the third quarter with a 90-82 lead. The Knicks also scored 38 points in the quarter.
New York continued their defensive prowess in the fourth quarter as the Lakers would only score 18 points in the fourth. Around the three-minute mark, Anunoby skied up for an offensive rebound and slammed it home for a putback dunk. Landry Shamet hit the dagger three with 59.3 seconds to go as the Garden crowd started to roar seeing a victory insight. Both teams would make substitutions and the Knicks won 112-100.
The Knicks defense held the Lakers to 44 points in the second half and marked the fifth time out of six games where Knick opponents have scored 100 points or less. Luka had 30 points, 15 rebounds, and 8 assists. LeBron had 22 points in what could be his final game at MSG. New York’s starting five all had over double digits in points scored. Anunoby had 25, Hart had 20, and Shamet had 23 and six threes.
I asked Knicks’ head coach Mike Brown on Landry Shamet’s performance “Landry [has] been impactful for us the entire season, you know obviously he was really good tonight, and shooting the ball he was 6-10 from three, not only has he shot it well this year, he has been very big for us defensively when he’s been out on the floor and with his versatility and his physicality and how hard he plays it’s great have him out there.”
I also asked Luka Doncic what his team needs to do to bounce back when they play the Brooklyn Nets on the road on Tuesday he simply said “Play Better.” While the Lakers play the Nets on Tuesday the Knicks will travel to Washington to play the Wizards looking to push their win streak to seven games.
