A lot happened at Little Caesars Arena last night, when the Lakers traveled to Detroit to face the Pistons, but let’s start with the game stats first, before we delve into some of the controversies of the evening. And the most important fact – the LA Lakers beat the Pistons 121 to 116!
But the victory is not what will be heating up the newswires on Monday, but rather the controversy in the 3rd quarter of the game, when LeBron James was ejected from the game, after the Lakers star’s elbow connected with Pistons Isaiah Stewart’s face. The blow seemed to cut Stewart’d right brow, blooding the player’s face, and had to be restrained multiple times but coaching staff and security. The whole scuffle led to a more than a 15-minute delay int he game, with the final result being the ejection of LeBron with 9:18 left on the clock in the quarter. This was certainly not the way we wanted LeBrons comeback from his abdominal injury to unfold.
“Everyone in the league knows LeBron is not a dirty guy! We’re not promoting violence,” teammate Anthony Davis addressed the incident after the game was over.
“I don’t think James is a dirty player, but Stew cut his eye,” Pistons coach Dwane Casey echoed the same sentiment post-game, “He felt like he had been cheap-shotted across the brow.”
Up until that moment, the Lakers were trailing 78-66 to the hapless Pistons and it seemed that the Lakers would’ve extended their losing streak to 4 games. But the controversy with Stewart and James seemed to galvanise the Lakers. L.A. came out strong in the final quarter to flip the game on it’s head and come out with the “W” for the night. The Lakers swept the 4th quarter 37-17, erasing all the deficit and adding enough points to win the game.
Up until his ejection, LeBron James punched the clock for 21 minutes, scoring 10 points with 1 rebound and 5 assists. Anthony Davis, who always tends to shine when James is around, did not disappoint in Detroit. AD went for a double-double, scoring 30 points with 10 rebounds and 6 assists. Russell Westbrook also had the chance to shine and was one rebound away from a triple-double, after scoring 26 points, with 10 assists and 9 rebounds. Carmelo contributed 18 points and Dwight Howard – 13.
For the Pistons, Jerami Grant was once again strong in the paint, scoring 36 points against the Lakers, but Detroit failed to squeeze large numbers from the rest of the team. Hamidou Diallo scored 17 and Frank Jackson rounded the top three on the Pistons scoresheet with 15.
The win in Detroit helped the Lakers to break the losing streak and climb to the 8th spot on the Western Conference table with 9-9 record. They are traveling to New York to face the Knicks on Tuesday, who lost their last road game against the Bulls on Sunday, but are still holding on above 0.500 with a 9-8 record.
