Sawt Falasteen - Ball, Bridges shine as Hornets sting Lakers

Point guard Ball finished with 27 points, including five three-pointers, to help the Hornets complete only their fifth road win of the season. Miles Bridges led Charlotte's scoring with 29 points.

The Lakers, with LeBron James and Luka Doncic both starting, looked poised for a routine victory after opening up a 13-point cushion with a 65-52 lead late in the third quarter.

But some inspired shooting by Ball -- and the ejection of Lakers shooting guard Austin Reaves -- swung the game back in favor of the Hornets.

From trailing by 13, the Hornets went off on a 17-1 run and Seth Curry nailed a 26-foot three-pointer to put the visitors 69-66 up heading into the fourth quarter.

Two three-pointers from Ball saw the Hornets race into a nine-point lead at 75-66 early in the fourth as the Lakers scrambled to regroup.

The Lakers did finally hit back offensively to get within two, and a running layup by James saw them regain the lead at 78-77.

But the Hornets always managed to stay in touch and a 30-foot three-pointer from Bridges put them 93-90 ahead with just under two minutes remaining.

The Lakers regained the lead with a Doncic layup soon afterwards, but Nick Smith's three-pointer wrenched back the lead for Charlotte, and Ball closed out the win with four more points. James missed two attempted three-pointers to tie the game as the clock ran out.

James led the Lakers scoring with 26 points, 11 assists and seven rebounds. Doncic finished with 14 points, 11 rebounds and eight assists but coughed up six turnovers.

Lakers coach J.J. Redick admitted his team struggled after Reaves' ejection, but said the Lakers' problems were down to a shoddy offensive display as the team returned from the mid-season NBA All-Star break.

"I think we played 39 to 44 minutes of pretty poor offense," Redick said. "Some of that's to be expected. Some of it was sloppiness, some of it was poor execution.

"I'm not going to read too much into that because I think our guys competed tonight and they played extremely hard.

"That's not to make an excuse. That's just the reality of having six days off as a group and trying to integrate new pieces. That happens sometimes.

"I thought our competitive spirit was good enough to win -- we were just really poor offensively for 90 percent of the game."

The defeat leaves the Lakers in fifth place in the Western Conference with a 32-21 record.

Z.AlNajjar--SF-PST