Davis scores season-high 41, leading Lakers over Raptors
LOS ANGELES >> The Lakers ended one skid, a four-game losing streak, when they beat the Clippers on Sunday.
And with Tuesday's 132-131 win over the Toronto Raptors, they started another one — a two-victory winning streak, their first back-to-back wins in more than a month.
The Lakers (19-19) were led by Anthony Davis, who scored a regularseason high 41 points — including 20 points in the fourth quarter — to go with 11 rebounds and six assists in 40 minutes.
LeBron James added 22 points, 12 assists and five rebounds while Christian Wood (14 points) and D'Angelo Russell (11 points, 5 assists) scored 25 of the Lakers' 34 bench points.
Austin Reaves (11 points, 7 assists, 3 rebounds), who has been struggling with his 3-point jumper in January after shooting 39.7% on 3s in December, made a pull-up 30-footer to put the Lakers up 114-112 with three minutes left.
James assisted Davis on an and-1 layup in transition on the Lakers' next possession, with Davis making the free throw to give the Lakers a 117-112 advantage — their biggest lead of the fourth.
But the Raptors didn't go away quietly.
After Dennis Schröder, who made his return to Crypto.com Arena after playing for the Lakers last season, grabbed an offensive rebound, Schröder kicked out to Gary Trent Jr. (14 points) for a 3-pointer to put the Raptors up 121-120 with over a minute left.
But the Lakers responded with what worked well all Tuesday night: feeding Davis on the interior. Reaves fed Davis for a layup on the possession after Trent's 3 and James darted a pass in the post to Davis, who had Pascal Siakam (22 points) sealed behind him, before getting fouled and making a pair of free throws to give the Lakers a 124-121 lead with 34 seconds left.
With the Raptors intentionally fouling in the final 24 seconds, the Lakers made all 10 of their final shots from the charity stripe for their first backto-back wins since beating the New Orleans Pelicans and Indiana Pacers in the In-Season Tournament's semifinals and championship game on Dec. 7 and Dec. 9, respectively.
Immanuel Quickley, who fouled out with 3:52 remaining after elbowing Cam Reddish in the face on a drive, finished with 21 points (8-of-14 shooting), five assists and five rebounds in 26 minutes.
After being down on the floor in pain for a while, Reddish (13 points on 4-of-6 shooting from beyond the arc in 23 minutes) made it back to his feet and made one of two flagrant foul free throws to put the Lakers up 111109 before exiting the game.
Max Christie (6 points, 4 rebounds) closed out the game in Reddish's place.
Scottie Barnes, who fouled out with 3.2 seconds remaining, led the Raptors (15-22) with 26 points.
The Lakers will close out their fivegame homestand with a matchup against the Phoenix Suns on Thursday.
They'll play the Utah Jazz on Saturday in Salt Lake City before returning to Southern California, with their next six games after the trip to Utah being in Los Angeles.