Anthony Davis, LeBron James lead Lakers to first NBA In-Season Tournament title vs. Pacers

June 02, 2024

LAS VEGAS — LeBron James’ name is now on a new page of the NBA record book, Anthony Davis looked like Wilt Chamberlain and each Los Angeles Lakers player is $500,000 richer.

Behind 41 points and 20 rebounds from Davis, the Lakers defeated the Indiana Pacers 123-109 in the first In-Season Tournament championship game in league history. The NBA Cup is in the hands of a franchise — and a lead star — with some real practice in raising trophies.

James, a four-time NBA champion and MVP, a 19-time All-Star and, of course, the league’s all-time leading scorer, owns a title that Michael Jordan and Bill Russell never saw. They never had the chance, but that’s not James’ fault. Commissioner Adam Silver implemented the new tournament this season, and James — who was named the NBA Cup MVP — raised his play to meet the moment, again.

In the finale, James finished with 24 points, 11 rebounds and four assists, but entered Saturday with 61 points in the Lakers’ wins in the quarterfinal and semifinal games. He received 17 of a possible 25 first-place votes for MVP honors, which covered the championship game and overall tournament.

“I feel like when we are on the floor together and we’re healthy, we know what we’re capable of doing,” James said, talking about himself and Davis and their five seasons together with the Lakers — which now include a 2020 NBA title and the first IST championship. “We’ve played too many games together, shared too many moments together, played in too many big moments together to fail each other. It’s been everything, like I said, especially at the later stage of my career.”

Davis’ points and rebounds would have been new season highs, but neither the statistics nor the win (or in Indiana’s case, the loss) from the IST title game counted toward regular-season totals.

Davis, and the Lakers in general, owned the bright red paint. He added four blocks and shot 16 of 24 from the field with a bag of rim-shaking dunks and accompanying scowls on full display.

The Lakers didn’t make a single 3-pointer for nearly 36 game minutes. And by the time it was over, L.A. had outscored the Pacers by an astounding 86-44 in the lane and outrebounded them 55-32.

A 13-0 run that began with 5 minutes, 50 seconds remaining sealed it for the Lakers. Davis scored the last 10 points in that stretch.

“We’ve been doing it together for a long time, five years now, and we just figure it out,” Davis said about playing with James. “We know each other’s tendencies, what we like to do. Obviously, in crunchtime, we get to our infamous pick-and-roll and it’s tough to stop.”

“We feed off one another,” Davis continued. “Thursday, LeBron had it going. Tonight, it was me, and he still did his thing. But it wasn’t just us two.”

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Austin Reaves, playing with an undisclosed illness Saturday, set what would have been a new season high with 28 points off the Lakers bench. He said he might use his prize money to buy a membership to one of Los Angeles’ exclusive golf clubs. Fore!

D’Angelo Russell, Reaves’ golfing buddy, added 13 points and seven assists for the Lakers.

The Lakers are tied with the Boston Celtics for NBA titles — 17 apiece. Can we count the IST as the (temporary) tiebreaker?

“Any time you can be the first to win or do anything or win anything, it’s cool,” Reaves said. “The money is obviously a good, extra bonus, but any time we get on the court and compete as a unit, we want to win regardless of the tournament or regular-season game. To be able to say that we won the first one is cool.”

Added James: “We want to put it in perspective that it’s still December. We like where we are right now but we want to continue to work on our habits, continue to get healthy as well. But I think right now where we are in December, I would take it.”

The Pacers were led by Tyrese Haliburton and Bennedict Mathurin, who each scored 20 points. Indiana, which has never won an NBA championship and hasn’t been to the playoffs in three seasons, couldn’t take enough advantage of the Lakers’ 2-of-13 shooting from 3-point range or their 20 turnovers.

“It was a tough game,” Pacers coach Rick Carlisle said. “We knew it was going to be a tough game coming in. We did a lot of good things to hang around in the fourth quarter. Getting over the hump was hard.

“But really, I just want to express such a high level of pride for our guys,” Carlisle continued. “The stats don’t matter because this game really didn’t happen. The result happened and they won the Cup, so congratulations to them. Darvin (Ham) did a great job with their team.”

Saturday’s game — as close as three points in the fourth quarter — was the 67th in Silver’s inaugural tournament. The Lakers won all seven of their games and the Pacers’ loss in the championship was their first.

The winning team for the IST earned $500,000 per player; the runner-up earned $200,000. Arena workers threw together a stage for the Lakers to stand on, and members of the local Boys & Girls Club of America put gold medals around the players’ necks. And then it was time for ski goggles and a champagne fight in the bowels of T-Mobile Arena.

The Lakers took a 65-60 lead into halftime. Reaves scored 22 in the first two periods — one off his previous season high. James watched the final few minutes of the half from the bench, having picked up his third foul. Davis went to the locker room with 17 points and 11 rebounds — a stat line indicative of how the Lakers were playing overall. They outscored Indiana by 30 in the paint in the first half alone.

Los Angeles missed all six of its 3s in the first half and didn’t connect on any from beyond the arc until Taurean Prince knocked one down with 1:11 left in the third quarter. A James alley-oop to Davis with less than a minute left in the third made it 90-79, but Mathurin hit a running 3-pointer at the buzzer to cut Indiana’s deficit back to eight.

“We’re sick, frustrated. We just got outplayed tonight from the start of the game to the end of the game,” Haliburton said. “We’ve done some great things to get here, competed against some really good teams and battled, and you can’t let that happen for no reason.

“If you allow this loss to roll over and we’ve got a four-game road trip coming up here, you’ve got to take care of business and handle it the right way and celebrate the successes of it.”

A sellout crowd packed T-Mobile Arena and was overwhelmingly in favor of the Lakers. Each July during the NBA’s annual Summer League, the Lakers are traditionally one of the biggest draws, because of Las Vegas’ proximity to L.A. and its sprawling fan base.

Injury update: Before Saturday’s game, Carlisle said Pacers reserve guard Andrew Nembhard would be out for at least seven days with a right knee bruise suffered in Thursday’s semifinal. Imaging on the knee revealed a bruise, but Carlisle said Nembhard would be re-evaluated in seven days, which means Nembhard’s absence could extend beyond a week.

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(Photo: Ethan Miller / Getty Images)

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