You take the good with the bad with Russell Westbrook. Unfortunately for the Lakers on this occasion, the bad was costly.
LA fell to the Philadelphia 76ers at home 113-112 on Monday (all times AEDT) after a puzzling last possession from Westbrook with the game on the line where he failed to get a shot off.
Following a Joel Embiid miss at the other end, Westbrook dribbled the ball up the court with over 13 seconds left with the Philly big man guarding him.
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Zach LaVine added 27 points while Alex Caruso and Ayo Dosunmu had 12 points apiece. Coby White added 15 from the bench.
“I got going really early,” said Vucevic after going 18-for-31 from the field with five three-pointers. “It’s hard to explain. You just get this feeling within yourself that it’s kinda gonna be your night and you just play.
“We really moved the ball. We really played aggressively offensively and I was able to get into my spots.”
The victory was the perfect tonic for the Bulls (20-24) as they now head to Paris next week for a regular season fixture against the Detroit Pistons on Friday.
But the loss was another alarm bell for the struggling Warriors, the reigning NBA champions who are in eighth place in the Western Conference standings with a 21-22 record.
With it, Steve Kerr’s side fell to 4-17 on the road overall including 1-10 against Eastern Conference sides.
It’s clearly been a major hurdle in the 21-22 team’s season, boosted by the returns of Steph Curry and Andrew Wiggins last week.
Even Golden State was just slightly below average on the road, it’d be in striking distance of the West’s No. 1 seed amid the evenness of the conference.
Klay Thompson dropped eight triples en route to 26 points to pace the Warriors and Curry posted 20 points and 10 rebounds but the Warriors were left counting the cost of 23 turnovers.
“We’re having trouble stacking good decision upon good decision,” Warriors coach Steve Kerr said.
“That’s what this game is about — at both ends. You’re not always going to make shots but can you execute offensively without turning the ball over?
“Can you execute defensively over and over again?…We’re just not solid enough right now to be able to do that.” Kerr meanwhile refused to make excuses for the defeat.
“You can make all kinds of excuses but it doesn’t matter,” Kerr said. “Everybody’s got excuses, everyone’s got injuries with guys in and out of the rotation. We just got to do better.”
Ja Morant doing Ja Morant things | 00:31
In other games on Monday, Julius Randle scored a season-high 42 points as the New York Knicks bagged their third straight victory with a 117-104 defeat of Detroit.
Randle also hauled in 15 rebounds while team-mate Jalen Brunson finished with 27 points in a comfortable victory for the Knicks, who are sixth in the Eastern Conference table.
Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau was left purring at Randle’s performance both in defence and offence.
“The rebounding is just huge. He got every big rebound down the stretch,” Thibodeau said. “He’s all over the place.
“He’s on the perimeter guarding guards and everything else. I thought he was terrific.” In Los Angeles, Kawhi Leonard and Terance Mann combined for 61 points in the Clippers’ 121-100 win over the Houston Rockets. Mann posted 31 points while Leonard added 30 as the league-worst Rockets slumped to a 10th straight loss
ALL RESULTS
KNICKS 117 PISTONS 104
ROCKETS 100 CLIPPERS 121
WARRIORS 118 BULLS 132
THUNDER 112 NETS 102
KINGS 132 SPURS 119
MAGIC 116 NUGGETS 119
MAVERICKS 123 TRAIL BLAZERS 140
76ERS 113 LAKERS 112
