Anthony Davis and LeBron James combined for 77 points on Friday night, but with eight seconds left in overtime, Trae Young made all their efforts for naught.
Both Davis and James were questionable to play Friday, each with an injury to the left foot. But both played, with James putting up a triple-double with 39 points, 10 rebounds and 11 assists, plus two steals and three blocks. He broke out of his three-point slump with a 6-for-11 performance from deep, his first game with multiple three-pointers in six games.
James repeatedly saved the Lakers late. After a back-and-forth final two minutes where the lead changed three times, James recovered after Jalen Johnson knocked the ball away to make the game-tying layup.
Then James saved a game-tying layup with a chase-down block with 25 seconds to go in OT, an impressive effort from a 39-year-old who’d already played 42 minutes, but honestly no surprise from LeBron, who may have been fired up by ESPN suggesting the Lakers should trade him earlier in the day.
Davis was almost as prolific, with 38 points, 10 boards and eight assists, with two blocks and a steal. He had go-ahead buckets in the fourth quarter and OT and delivered one of the Lakers’ three blocks in OT.
It didn’t matter. Atlanta outlasted the Lakers in a 134-132 slugfest. Young was the difference, delivering 20 assists and scoring 31 points, including an 8-for-8 performance from the free throw line. He constantly got his teammates wide-open looks, finding Bogdan Bogdanovic (20 points) five times and De’Andre Hunter (26 points) four times for buckets.
It’s the third-best single-game assist total in the NBA this season, behind his own 22-assist performance on Nov. 27. Young has four of the six best passing performances of 2024-25, and the Hawks had 40 assists for the game, with Johnson dishing seven dimes and Dyson Daniels getting five assists.
But in a game where Davis and James gave their all despite being injured, the Lakers still lost their third straight game and their seventh in nine games. The red-hot Hawks won their sixth in a row, and they did it thanks to Ice Trae.
