Lakers vs Kings Final Score: Lakers beat Kings, cowardly season series

The Lakers beat the Kings 132-122 on Saturday night to sweep them in the season series 4-0.

Anthony Davis scored 36 points with 15 rebounds and eight assists. Austin Reaves finished with 26 points, a career-high 16 assists and six rebounds. Rui Hachimura went 4-5 from behind the arc and scored 21 points with four rebounds and two blocks.

With LeBron James out, Gabe Vincent replaced him in the starting five. Unfortunately, he suffered an oblique strain and was out for the rest of the game after playing just six minutes. Max Christie finished with 16 points. Dalton Knecht had 18 points.

Austin started things off with five straight points. AD jumped in and made all five of his first shot attempts. Max contributed two 3-pointers. Former Laker Malik Monk cooked early, going three for four from the field, which included two threes. At the first timeout, LA was up five.

After Sacramento took the lead, a layup by Rui put the Lakers up by one. After LA won a coaching challenge, they had the ball and D’Angelo Russell drained a three. The Lakers found some offensive momentum and extended their lead to 11, with Dalton scoring four straight points. At the end of the first, Los Angeles was up by nine.

DeMar DeRozan started the second quarter hot, scoring five points from mid-range. The shots that the Kings missed in the first quarter started to fall now. At the first timeout, LA had a two-point lead.

Rui knocked down a much-needed 3-pointer to stop some of the momentum Sacramento had. The Lakers struggled to make their shots and missed far too many free throws.

Without LeBron, the purple and gold lacked the extra energy that would make the Kings fight that much more. The defense was non-existent, which contributed to Sacramento’s rapid scoring rate.

As we have seen, the Lakers struggle to close the half well. Thanks to De’Aaron Fox scoring four straight points, the Kings took a one-point lead into halftime.

The Kings stretched their lead to three to start the third. Austin answered with a 3-pointer to tie the game once again. Unfortunately for the Lakers, Max picked up back-to-back fouls, putting him in foul trouble.

Finally, the Lakers got going offensively thanks to Rui getting aggressive and scoring inside. The purple and gold went on a 7-0 run to extend their lead to eight, forcing Sacramento to call timeout.

Sabonis had foul trouble grabbing his fifth with four minutes left in the quarter. Los Angeles started to pull away and was up by double digits.

After Sacramento made a push to make it an eight-point game, the Lakers went on a tear to close out the quarter with 17.

Dalton opened the final frame with a 3-pointer. Sacramento had a rough start to the quarter with DeMar being the only King to score. The Lakers then started to miss some of their shots and the Kings started to heat up.

LA was forced to call timeout when the lead was down to 13.

Fox single-handedly cut the deficit to eight. However, the Kings had to play the rest of the game without Sabonis, who fouled out.

Sacramento didn’t give up, making it a two-possession game with 3:39 left. Los Angeles’ defense looked frantic, but the Kings missed a few shots and Max knocked down a three to put LA back within double figures.

Despite a valiant effort, the Kings fell apart and could not complete a comeback.

Key takeaways:

Big appreciation to Christian Koloko who has done a great job as the only real backup center for the team. He’s done a lot of the dirty work and he’s connected well on the dunk.

It’s nice to see Rui looking like he’s back in good form with his shots. He has been automatically behind the arc again.

The Lakers’ next game will be New Year’s Eve vs Cleveland Cavaliers at 6 p.m. PT.

You can follow Karin on Twitter at @KarinAbcarians.