NEW ORLEANS — One night after the Lakers were clicking on all cylinders in their most impressive road performance of the season, they looked like a team struggling to find answers on Saturday night against the New Orleans Pelicans.
A team struggling to find its collective energy from the jump after beating the Spurs on Friday night in San Antonio.
A team struggling to find an offensive rhythm – especially with the rotation forced to adjust again because of injuries.
A team struggling to keep the Pelicans, who were even more short-handed, off the offensive glass for significant parts of Saturday.
But in the end, the Lakers (9-4) overcame the lulls associated with playing on the second night of a back-to-back, scraping together a 104-99 victory over the Pelicans for their fifth consecutive win.
“It’s good to know that you can execute down the stretch, you can make plays down the stretch no matter what the game calls for,” Lakers star LeBron James said. “[Saturday] was another one of those moments.”
Anthony Davis (31 points, 14 rebounds) and rookie forward Dalton Knecht (career-high 27 points on 10-of-17 shooting, 5 for 10 from 3-point range) gave the Lakers the boost they needed in the third quarter to overcome a 10-point halftime deficit after trailing by 15 in the second quarter.
But it was James (21 points, seven rebounds, five assists) providing the Lakers with the late-game shot-making they needed.
After missing his first five 3-point attempts and struggling with his shot for most of the night, the 39-year-old James knocked down a catch-and-shoot 3-pointer to put the Lakers ahead, 98-97, with less than two minutes left.
And one night after playing a more off-ball role in crunch time, James controlled the game late, knocking down another 3-pointer out of a pick-and-roll to put the Lakers ahead, 101-97, with 37 seconds left.
James did his signature palms down “Silencer” celebration after the second 3-pointer.
“Just living in the moment, being able to still make plays and make big shots at this point in my career,” he said. “That’s what you live for. You never will be able to get those moments back when you’re done.”
James missed a pull-up two-point attempt on the Lakers’ ensuing possession after Jeremiah Robinson-Earl made a layup to cut the Lakers’ deficit to two. Max Christie back-tapped an offensive rebound so the Lakers could maintain possession.
“How about Max Christie? Crash of his life from the corner,” Coach JJ Redick said. “He guarded his butt off all night. Not a big offensive night and he gets that offensive rebound tip-out to kind of seal the win for us. That was huge.”
With the Pelicans forced to foul late, James split a pair of free throws and Knecht made a pair to seal the win.
“Let’s be honest, it wasn’t his best performance going into crunch time,” Redick said. “And unsurprisingly, he delivered. Beyond just LeBron’s crunch-time performance, our group, in some ways, that could have been the [Nov. 4 road loss to the Detroit Pistons] for us. We stayed connected. We kept fighting. The resiliency that we showed was really good.”
The Pelicans were led by Brandon Ingram, who had 32 points, eight rebounds, four rebounds and three steals. New Orleans was without Zion Williamson, Dejounte Murray, Trey Murphy, CJ McCollum, Herbert Jones, Jordan Hawkins and Jose Alvarado.
Davis (15 points) and Knecht (11) combined for 26 of the Lakers’ 29 third-quarter points.
“Every time he shoots the ball, I think it’s going in,” Davis said of Knecht. “That’s why we get so frustrated and upset with him when he doesn’t shoot. He’s a great player. He can defend, he can shoot, he can put it on the floor, he can pass. So he can do it all. But when he have his stretches when he gets hot, it’s a big boost for our team. And we’re able to feed off the energy and most of the time we make a run off of it.”
Knecht, who made his second consecutive start and third of the season on Saturday, has averaged 20 points on 63.9% shooting (63.2% from behind the arc) over his last three games.
“He’s getting comfortable,” Redick said of Knecht. “But I would also say when you are an offensive player, when you’re a guy who is a high-level shooter, getting more extended runs and getting more minutes, you’re naturally just going to be more in the flow of the game.
“I think maybe I called a play or two for him, but he just kind of got it through our offense and our passing and ball movement.”
The Pelicans (4-10) finished with 18 offensive rebounds for 24 second-chance points, with most of those extra opportunities coming in the first half. New Orleans had six offensive rebounds for 10 second-chance points in the second half.
The Lakers finished with 17 offensive rebounds for 28 second-chance points.
“There wasn’t really an adjustment defensively – it was just get the [expletive] ball,” Redick said. “That’s all it was.”
The Lakers will have a couple of days off before opening a three-game homestand with an NBA Cup Group Play matchup against the Utah Jazz on Tuesday night at Crypto.com Arena.
They opened Group Play with the aforementioned victory over the Spurs to stay undefeated in NBA Cup play dating to last season’s inaugural tournament.