The Lakers and Minnesota Timberwolves were locked in a back-and-forth battle Sunday night in Los Angeles.
Until the fourth quarter. On the back of a monster game from Anthony Davis, the Lakers turned a 92-92 fourth-quarter tie into a 120-109 victory to secure their ninth win in 13 games. In the end, Davis did something no player in NBA history has done before.
Davis finished the game with 27 points, 25 rebounds, five assists, seven steals and three blocks. No other player in NBA history has tallied 25-plus points, 25-plus rebounds, five-plus assists and five-plus steals in a single game.
Davis did so while taking full advantage of a Timberwolves front line missing center Rudy Gobert and power forward Karl-Anthony Towns, both of whom missed Sunday’s game with injury. Towns is out for an extended stretch with a torn meniscus in his left knee, while Gobert sat with hamstring tightness after entering Sunday with a questionable tag.
Naz Reid got the starting nod in the post for Minnesota and delivered on offense with 25 points while hitting 5 of 10 3-pointers. But he was no match for Davis, a nine-time All-Star who was the best player on the floor Sunday night. LeBron James had a strong night of his own with 29 points, nine assists and eight rebounds.
With the win, the Lakers improved to 36-30 to gain a 1.5-game cushion over the 10th-place Golden State Warriors and move within one game of the eighth-place Dallas Mavericks in the Western conference play-in race. They’re now two games back of the sixth-place Phoenix Suns, who would earn the West’s last guaranteed playoff spot if the postseason started Sunday.
The Timberwolves lost their second straight game and their fourth in six to drop to 44-21. Once in first place, they now trail the the 45-19 Oklahoma City Thunder and 44-20 Denver Nuggets at the top of the West as they adjust to playing the rest of the regular season without Towns.