Coming into Thursday, the Los Angeles Lakers were reeling. They were coming off back-to-back blowout losses to the Houston Rockets and Atlanta Hawks, and their defense had suffered a complete collapse over their last several games.
To make matters worse, they faced the Boston Celtics, the NBA’s best team, on Thursday. On top of that, LeBron James and Anthony Davis were ruled out prior to the opening tip.
Surely, the Lakers were headed for a blowout loss on the road against a Celtics team that came in with a league-best 22-2 record at home. Surely, the Lakers had as much a chance of beating Boston as a nor’easter had of striking Southern California.
Instead, they pulled off the upset of the season.
Los Angeles came out and stunned the Celtics and their fans by taking a 28-17 lead in the first quarter. Boston fought back to take a brief 32-31 lead, but that would do it as far as the highlights for the home team.
The Lakers muscled their way to a 60-46 halftime lead, and they successfully fended off Boston’s attempts to make things competitive en route to a 114-105 victory.
They got the job done by playing with the type of energy, aggression, urgency and fire they have shown only on occasion this season. All too often this year, they have gotten outhustled and outworked by their opponents. But on this night, they did the outhustling themselves.
Los Angeles pounded the boards, especially its offensive boards, and it was the aggressor throughout. It had a 21-17 edge in fast-break points thanks to its defense, which held Boston to 42.3% shooting overall and 33.3% from 3-point range while forcing 15 turnovers. Boston came into this contest ranked second in offensive rating.
The Purple and Gold also shot 19 more free throws, and while they made just 40.4% of their shot attempts, they were a sizzling 52.8% from downtown.