MILWAUKEE — Exhausted from logging 52 minutes, 51 seconds — the most playing time of his career and most by a Los Angeles Lakers player since Kobe Bryant in 2012 — and hobbled by a sore knee that required treatment during the game, all Anthony Davis could do was smile after outlasting the Milwaukee Bucks 128-124 in double overtime on Tuesday. «It was fun,» Davis said after the Lakers, playing without LeBron James because of a sore left ankle, trailed by 19 points in the fourth quarter before storming back. «Let's line up and do it all over again tomorrow.» Indeed, L.A.'s reward for its fourth win in a row — drawing the team two games behind the Phoenix Suns for the No.
8 seed in the Western Conference with 10 contests remaining — is the second night of a back-to-back Wednesday at the Memphis Grizzlies.
And the upset win over the Bucks — during which Davis put up 34 points and 23 rebounds, Austin Reaves tallied 29 points, 14 rebounds and 10 assists for the second triple-double of his career and D'Angelo Russell had 29 points and 12 assists — will go for naught without validating it against the cellar-dwelling Grizzlies. «Now we got to fill our cups back up and try to go play against a really hard-playing, highly competitive Memphis team regardless of what their circumstances are with people being in and out of the lineup,» Lakers coach Darvin Ham said.
L.A. started Tuesday's game shooting 2-for-16 from the field as the Bucks built a 19-point lead in the first quarter. The Lakers cut it to single digits in the second and again in the third, but Milwaukee padded its cushion back to 19 with 8:25 remaining in the fourth.