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LOS ANGELES — The Lakers returned from their four-game road trip, which they lost the final three games of, looking and sounding like a team in need of a stretch of time at home.
And with the team scheduled to be in Southern California for six days between Saturday and Thursday before Friday’s road game against the Minnesota Timberwolves in Minneapolis, it would’ve been easy for the Lakers to overlook their home matchup against the Portland Trail Blazers on Saturday at Crypto.com Arena.
Especially when star forward LeBron James was ruled out because of left foot soreness.
But looking to bounce back from the sting of a gut-wrenching loss to the Atlanta Hawks on Friday, the Lakers (13-11) took care of business, beating the Blazers 107-98 to end their three-game losing streak.
Anthony Davis led the Lakers, who lost seven of their previous nine games entering Sunday, with 30 points and 11 rebounds.
D’Angelo Russell stepped up off of the bench in light of James’ absence, finishing with season-highs of 28 points, 14 assists, nine made field and five made 3-pointers to go along with five rebounds in 34 minutes.
Russell had 13 points and five assists in the fourth, a quarter the Lakers entered with a 77-74 lead after the Blazers (8-16), who are on a four-game losing streak and have lost eight of their last 10 games, finished the third on an 11-2 run.
The 10th-year guard opened the quarter by assisting Rui Hachimura (season-high 23 points on 9-of-13 shooting) on a pair of layups, sandwiched around Russell’s floater, to give the Lakers an 83-76 lead early in the fourth.
Russell hit a trio of stepback 3-pointers, assisting Christian Kololo on a dunk and Cam Reddish on a 3, to put the Lakers up 97-81 with 7:14 left in the game.
The Lakers led 107-88 before both teams pulled their main rotation players.
The Blazers closed the game on an 11-0 run with both team’s end-of-bench players in the game.
The Lakers finished with 14 steals and forced 17 turnovers, resulting in 26 points. Hachimura led the team with four steals, while Gabe Vincent had three and Reddish had two.
Portland was led by Shaedon Sharpe’s 19 points, seven rebounds and three assists.
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