The Los Angeles Lakers desperately needed a win on Sunday evening against the Portland Trail Blazers. Head coach JJ Redick was left reeling for answers after a nine-game stretch in which L.A. lost seven games and nearly looked as though they had quit on the whole season.
But they showed some fight at the tail-end of the losing stretch against the Atlanta Hawks, and were consistent in their comfortable victory over Portland. The Lakers didn’t even have LeBron James in the lineup, but they were able to have guys like Rui Hachimura and D’Angelo Russell step up and make his absence less noticeable.