James comes on late, lifts LA over Memphis

MEMPHIS — LeBron James took over the game to open the fourth quarter and helped the Los Angeles Lakers pull away for their third consecutive victory.

James had 22 points, 13 rebounds and 8 assists, Anthony Davis added 17 points and nine rebounds as the Lakers opened a two-game set in Memphis with a 108-94 victory over the Grizzlies on Sunday night.

“We were doing a lot of jostling with Memphis,” James said, “At the start of the fourth, I wanted to try and implement myself and my scoring a little bit more. Get a bit more in attack mode and see if I could kind of open the game up and we were able to do that.”

James played within the offense for the first three quarters, then became more aggressive to start the fourth, scoring the Lakers first 10 points of the period. His three-pointer with 2:34 left made it 101-90.

Montrezl Harrell added 16 points and nine rebounds to help the Lakers.

Kyle Anderson led Memphis with 18 points, and Jonas Valanciunas had 14 points and 10 rebounds. Tyus Jones also had 14 points, and rookie Desmond Bane had 13.

The Lakers led 56-54 at the break after both teams held advantages of at least nine points in the first half. Los Angeles took a 77-75 lead into the fourth.

In other games Sunday night, Jayson Tatum hit a fallaway as Blake Griffin stumbled with 2.9 seconds left, then tied up the Detroit veteran on the other end to help the Boston Celtics beat the host Detroit Pistons 122-120 for a weekend split. Jaylen Brown led Boston with 31 points. He hit a late three-pointer and was 13 of 16 from the floor, two nights after his late miss sealed a loss in the opener in Detroit. Tatum had 24 points and 12 assists. … Bradley Beal had 27 points, 10 rebounds and the assist on Thomas Bryant’s goahead dunk with 14.9 seconds left, leading the Washington Wizards past the Brooklyn Nets 123-122 in New York. Kyrie Irving and Kevin Durant missed jumpers on the last possession, dropping the Nets to 3-4. Russell Westbrook had 24 points and 10 assists for the Wizards. … Jamal Murray scored a season-high 36 points, Nikola Jokic had 19 points, 12 rebounds and 12 assists as the Denver Nuggets beat the Minnesota Timberwolves 124109 in Minneapolis. Murray scored 26 points in the first half, including 16 in the second quarter. … Bojan Bogdanovic scored 28 points and the Utah Jazz made a season-high 21 three-pointers to beat the host San Antonio Spurs 130-109. Donovan Mitchell added 22 points and nine assists in 29 minutes. Utah was 21 for 41 on three-pointers compared to 6 for 19 by San Antonio.