James Score 34 In Lakers Eighth Straight-away Win
LeBron James scored a season-high 34 points as the Los Angeles Lakers won their eighth straight road game to start the season with a 113-106 victory over the Milwaukee Bucks on Thursday.
The victory opened a seven-game road trip for the first-place Lakers, who are hoping this is the beginning of another win streak. They had a five-game winning streak snapped in their most recent outing, a 115-113 loss to Golden State.
James made a clutch three-pointer and capped his night with an emphatic double-clutch slam dunk as the Lakers improved to a NBA best 12-4 on the season after Thursday’s gritty performance at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee.
Kentavious Caldwell-Pope had 23 points and Anthony Davis ended with 18 points and nine rebounds in the win. Caldwell-Pope sank seven-of-10 threes.
Going on a seven-game road trip might be a difficult task for some teams but not the Lakers, who have excelled away from Staples Center arena this season by compiling a franchise-best 8-0 start on the road.
“We still have a lot to improve on,” said Caldwell-Pope. “It is coming along. We are just playing for each other.”
The Lakers started the fourth with a five-point lead, 86-81, but quickly extended that to 11 points. The Bucks took advantage of some sloppy Laker defence to go on a 9-0 run to close the gap to 98-96 with three minutes to go.
But James and Alex Caruso each drained key three-pointers in the final two minutes. James put the game away in style by driving hard to the basket and dunking it with 15 seconds remaining in the fourth.
