CHICAGO, Illinois — The ball was moving, the shots were falling, and Luka Don\u010di\u0107 created magic in Chicago.<\/p>\n
The Los Angeles Lakers continued their momentum in their road trip behind a season-high night from 3 from Don\u010di\u0107 and an all-around effort, beating the Bulls 129-118 on the road at the United Center on Monday.<\/p>\n
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Don\u010di\u0107 orchestrated one of his best performances of the year in the Lakers’ fourth contest of a current eight-game road trip. He brought out every trick and move from his deep bag with multiple no-look, behind the back and cross-court passes against the Bulls.<\/p>\n
The Slovenian finished with 46 points, 11 assists and seven rebounds while making eight 3s — his season-high — and 15 of 25 shots from the field.<\/p>\n
“He had his whole game on tonight,” coach JJ Redick said on Don\u010di\u0107. “He’s an engine that’s fully on. He likes to create out there and that’s part of him that makes him a great player. Because I’ve played with him, I have a good understanding of that.”<\/p>\n
“You have to be willing to live with some of the stuff that he tries because more often than not you’re going to get a great result.”<\/p>\n
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The Lakers knocked down 16 three-pointers and shot 54% from beyond the arc against the Bulls, marking their third-highest totals this season in both makes and efficiency.<\/p>\n
Things were clicking for the Lakers in the first half; their 3-ball was falling, and they disrupted Chicago’s offense. They forced the Bulls — who are the best team in the NBA at not turning it over — to commit over 10 turnovers in the first half, even causing multiple near shot clock violations that forced the Bulls to shoot a bad shot with the clock winding down.<\/p>\n
The Lakers reached a 20-point lead in the second quarter — their biggest of the game — and it looked as though it was heading toward a blowout.<\/p>\n
Then, just like they did against the Mavericks, the Lakers had a horrendous run in the third quarter. The Bulls came out with more energy and opened the third, leading to a 24-12 run and the score within one.<\/p>\n
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As the Bulls pushed closer to taking back the lead, Don\u010di\u0107 played hero for L.A. to keep Chicago at bay, scoring 20 points with four 3-pointers in the third quarter.<\/p>\n
Don\u010di\u0107 would continue his dominance into the fourth, with the help of Rui Hachimura and LeBron James.<\/p>\n
James was the Lakers’ halftime scoring leader with 20 points through two quarters. He played a large part in the Lakers’ big start in Chicago, having multiple one-handed dunks and defensive sequences. James finished with 24 points.<\/p>\n
Hachimura continued his damage in his new role as the team’s sixth man. He started right where he left off in Dallas, hitting nearly every shot he took. Hachimura poured in 23 points on nine of 11 shooting (four made 3s).<\/p>\n
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Even Jaxson Hayes had arguably the biggest play of the night despite Don\u010di\u0107 scoring at will, as the backup center had a breakaway between-the-legs dunk to put an exclamation point on the win.<\/p>\n
The Lakers have won four of their last five games and will have much-needed reinforcements, with Redick hinting that Austin Reaves will make his return within the road trip. They will face the Cleveland Cavaliers next on Wednesday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CHICAGO, Illinois — The ball was moving, the shots were falling, and Luka Don\u010di\u0107 created magic in Chicago.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":563886,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3771],"tags":[1013,7,920,919,329,3824,193,686,2048,32,1661,185,150,368,6,1012,10834],"class_list":{"0":"post-563885","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-chicago-bulls","8":"tag-austin-reaves","9":"tag-basketball","10":"tag-bulls","11":"tag-chicago","12":"tag-chicago-bulls","13":"tag-chicagobulls","14":"tag-cleveland-cavaliers","15":"tag-dallas","16":"tag-illinois","17":"tag-jaxson-hayes","18":"tag-jj-redick","19":"tag-lebron-james","20":"tag-los-angeles-lakers","21":"tag-luka-doncic","22":"tag-nba","23":"tag-rui-hachimura","24":"tag-united-center"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115966759678234218","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/563885","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=563885"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/563885\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/563886"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=563885"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=563885"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=563885"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}