Tiktukno - summary of today's events in sports, 19.1 (Sport1)
The Los Angeles Lakers recorded their 25th loss of the season this morning (Thursday) - this time 116:111 against Sacramento, and now LeBron James and his teammates are ranked 13th in the West, a game and a half away from Minnesota in tenth place.
Anthony Davis may return to the floor in early February, and until then, the Lakers will try to scrape together as many wins as possible.
"We are very limited in terms of the amount of players who can play right now," admitted LeBron.
"Until our key players return, we have to continue playing as we played in the previous games, without mistakes. There is zero room for mistakes here right now."
These mistakes have cost Darwin Hamm's team in three recent close losses, as well as some LeBron attrition.
King James played 38, 47, 35, 36 and 37 minutes in his last five games, and the morning hardly rested in the last quarter, in which he scored only 1 of 7 from the field.
"I feel bad about it," the mother admitted.
"He plays at an incredible level, but we can't wear him out. That was one of my goals this season, we need to take better care of his minutes."
Regarding the state of his team, the coach said: "We compete at the highest level, and just try to find the right group on the floor. It's challenging, but the guys are doing their part."
Another team that lost tonight is Dallas, who surrendered 130:122 at the hands of Atlanta - a third loss in a row, which made its coach Jason Kidd very angry.
Last year the Mavs ranked seventh in the league in defensive efficiency, this season they dropped to only 25th.
"We allowed the opponent to score 130 points on 57 percent of the field. It's like shooting practice," he said.
"In this league, if you do that, it doesn't matter if you have Luka or Karim, you will lose. You will always lose, no matter how many you score."
Kidd added: "Until we invest more in defense and figure out what needs to be done, we might continue to score 120 points, but we'll score 130, 140, maybe even 150. That's not good."
Luka Doncic, who finished with 30 points but was stopped in the last quarter, agreed: "We are good in attack, we need to make sure that we give a similar effort in defense."
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Bradley Beal returned to the floor after five games, scored 18 points and helped Washington beat New York 105:116.
"It was great," he said.
"It was fun to be back with the guys, I played well, we played hard and we won. I feel that the injury is behind me. We need to close gaps and win many more games, you can't make excuses. Now I'm back, we have a full squad and we're a better team than we were" .
Wes Anseld, who received good performance from his three stars - especially Kyle Kuzma and Kristaps Porzingis - hopes to create a winning streak that will return his team to the playoff picture: "It's good that our three best players played well together. The chemistry was not damaged or changed during Bradley's absence."
Danny Avdia got 29 minutes off the bench and was very good, with 14 points and 7 rebounds, with Monte Morris also delivering the goods with 13 points and 7 rebounds.
"They were the main enablers of the Big Three," NBC wrote.
Nikola Jokic continued his historic season with a third triple double in a row - this time 31 points, 13 assists and 11 rebounds in 118:122 over Minnesota.
During the game, he passed Alex English to become the Nuggets' all-time assists leader, with 3,686 in 568 games (the previous record was 837 games).
"When you have a lot of assists, it shows that you are a good team player," the center quipped.
"That's what I want to be. I want to be remembered as someone who was a good team player. To be honest, this might be the first time I'm excited about something like this."
English himself tweeted and congratulated the new record: "I knew my time would come and this record would be broken someday. I'm honored that the person who did it is the MVP for the last two years... actually, for the last three years. Congratulations, big guy."
Assistant coach David Edelman was on the lines, as Michael Malone entered the Corona protocol.
In the end, Edelman compared Jokic and Jamal Murray - who scored the important basket of the game - to Karl Malone and John Stockton.
"I don't think Stockton scored better than me," Murray said.
"But we are unique, because they try to keep us in many different ways."
Memphis kept the longest winning streak in the league and made it 11, after a dramatic 114:115 over Cleveland.
This time the hero of the evening was Steven Adams, who followed up on Ja Morant's foul shot with 16 seconds to go.
"He continued to do what he's done all season - taking care of rebounds. He got us the win," the center said about his chin.
sport
NBA
Tags
LeBron James
Nikola Jokic
NBA