Los Angeles big man Anthony Davis scored 23 of his season-high 32 points in the second half on Saturday as the Lakers earned a third straight NBA road win with a hard-fought 121-115 victory over the Cavaliers in Cleveland.
Davis added 13 rebounds and three blocked shots, helping the Lakers overcome a slow shooting night from superstar LeBron James against his former club, which honored the league’s all-time leading scorer with a video tribute in the first quarter.
James connected on just eight of 23 shots — one of nine from three-point range — on the way to 22 points in a nip-and-tuck game that featured 16 lead changes and never saw either team push its lead to double digits.
The Cavs’ 40-point first quarter saw them up by just five, and they led 71-70 at halftime.
Davis’s layup — after he rebounded a James miss, put the Lakers up 111-103 with 3:48 to play.
The Cavaliers cut the deficit to one with less than two minutes remaining, but James drove for a layup, came up with a steal and threw down a dunk and the Lakers held on.
“We just had to impose our will in the defensive end,” Davis said, acknowledging the Lakers benefitted from the second-half absence of Cleveland’s Darius Garland, who departed early with a neck injury.
But he hailed a “total team win” after seven of the eight Lakers players who took the court scored in double figures.
Donovan Mitchell, back after missing four games with a hamstring injury, finished with 22 points and Jarrett Allen added 21 points and 14 rebounds for the Cavs.
In Oklahoma City, Philadelphia’s NBA Most Valuable Player Joel Embiid scored 35 points and drained six free throws in the final 9.8 seconds to help the 76ers hold off the Thunder 127-123.
Embiid came up just shy of his first triple-double of the season, adding 11 rebounds and nine assists to go with four blocked shots and a steal to help the Sixers end the Thunder’s six-game winning streak.
Up by nine with 49 seconds remaining, the Sixers saw their lead cut to 121-118 on rookie center Chet Holmgren’s dunk with 11.1 seconds to go.
Embiid made two free throws, and he responded again at the line after Holmgren twice cut the deficit to two points.
“Obviously he put the game away,” Sixers coach Nick Nurse said of Embiid, but he added that in a league where late charges have become the norm, the Sixers have to finish better.
“Great performance, a lot of good stuff, et cetera,” he said. “But as everybody’s seeing around the league, there’s a lot of wild finishes in the games. We’ve got to make sure we stay locked in.”
Holmgren impresses
Tyrese Maxey scored 28 points and eight rebounds, and Tobias Harris added 16 points for Philadelphia.
Holmgren delivered another impressive performance, leading the Thunder with 33 points to go with six rebounds and three blocked shots.
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander scored 31 for the Thunder and guard Josh Giddey finished with 10 points seven rebounds and eight assists.
Giddey started despite an investigation by the NBA into an accusation that surfaced on social media that he had an improper relationship with an underage girl.
The 21-year-old Australian player has declined to comment on the matter, while Thunder coach Mark Daigneault said Friday that it was now “a league matter.”
In other games, the Brooklyn Nets snapped a three-game losing streak with a 112-97 victory over the short-handed Miami Heat.
Mikal Bridges scored 24 points and Cam Johnson added 19 points and 10 rebounds for the Nets, who had all five starters score in double figures.
Caleb Martin scored 22 off the bench to lead Miami and rookie Jaime Jaquez Jr. scored 18 for the Heat, who played without Jimmy Butler and Bam Adebayo one day after surrendering a 21-point lead in a loss to the New York Knicks at Madison Square Garden.
