With a dominating defensive effort against the Miami Heat, the Lakers won 95-80 and extended their win streak to seven. Their win streak is the longest by any team so far this season.
It is also the first time the Lakers have won seven straight games since the 2010-11 season - the last time the franchise entered a season as the defending champions and a season that the Lakers registered four seven-game win streaks.
In this game, the Lakers only had LeBron James and Anthony Davis finish in double figures but that's all they needed as they clamped down defensively on the Heat, who were playing on the second night of a back-to-back and the finale of a three-game West road trip.
For more on this game, here are the biggest takeaways:
Lakers continue defensive dominance
By defensive rating, the Lakers are the best defense in the NBA at 96.5.
Coming into this game, the Heat were ranked 11th in FG% at 46.0% and 4th in 3P% at 37.8% but the Lakers held them to just 28-of-80 (35.0%) from the field and 6-of-35 (17.1%) from long distance. The 80 points are the fewest allowed by the Lakers so far this season.
In a league that is seeing offensive numbers go up each season, the Heat didn't score more than 25 in any quarter. In fact, they only scored 34 points in the second half with just 14 in the final period.
The Heat's points tally should not be a surprise given how many shots the Lakers contested.
After another impressive defensive effort, @KingJames deserved to sit for the @SpectrumSN walkoff 📺. He helped limit Miami to 80 points (14 in 4th Q). Frank Vogel said LAL’s analytics team shared that they contested 88% of MIA’s shots, which he called unheard of. LAL are 7-1. pic.twitter.com/xw0J4EJhfS
— Mike Trudell (@LakersReporter) November 9, 2019
Was this a result of the Heat playing three games in four days on the West Coast?
Quite possible, however, the Lakers have played great defense all through this young season so far to deserve some credit.
LeBron & AD carry offense
In a low scoring affair, LeBron ensured the Lakers would come out on top by scoring 12 of the team's 17 points in the fourth quarter, nearly scoring as many as the Heat.
In 36 minutes, he finished with 25 points, six assists and four rebounds on 10-of-19 (52.6%) shooting from the field and 4-of-7 from long distance.
His 25-point game was the 1000th 20+ point game of his career, third only to Karl Malone and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
Congrats to @KingJames of the @Lakers for becoming the 3rd player in @NBAHistory to record 1,000 20+ point games! #LakeShow pic.twitter.com/5qaHVcH7JV
— NBA (@NBA) November 9, 2019
With James not recording a triple-double after doing so in the previous three games, Anthony Davis did the heavy lifting and finished with an impressive all-round statline in his 35 minutes.
Davis recorded 28 points eight rebounds, seven assists, two steals and three blocks. He shot an efficient 11-of-17 shooting from the field and was a game-high +27.