By Steve Reed | The Associated Press
CHARLOTTE, North Carolina—Luke Walton was surprised to hear that LeBron James and Lonzo Ball were only the second Lakers teammates to record a triple-double in the same game.
“I know it’s not easy. There have been a lot of good players in Lakers history and I figured Walton and Kobe [Bryant] would have done it a few times,” joked Walton, a former small forward with the Lakers.
James had 24 points, 12 rebounds and 11 assists, while Ball had 16 points, 10 rebounds and 10 assists as Los Angeles routed the Charlotte Hornets, 128-100, on Saturday night. The only other Lakers to accomplish the feat in the same game were Magic Johnson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar on January 22, 1982.
“It’s crazy, man,” Ball said. “I watched a lot of him [LeBron] growing up and now we had triple-doubles in the same game. I don’t even know if I dreamed of that before.”
Added James: “Any time you can put yourself in the conversation of Laker history, all the guys that have come through this franchise, it’s pretty special.”
James said he and Ball are “one in the same” when it comes to their playmaking ability.
“We are always looking for our teammates and that’s the greatest satisfaction we can have when we see our teammates score the ball,” James said. “Always been pretty good rebounders for our positions. Him at the guard spot and me at the 4…. We just try to be aggressive, attack the rim, make shots. We showed all that tonight.”
James continued his dominance over Charlotte, improving to 27-1 in his last 28 games against Michael Jordan’s franchise.
He was unstoppable throughout on penetration, helping the Lakers outscore the Hornets, 40-17, in the third quarter and build a 30-point lead with his second triple-double of the season and 75th of his career. He did not need to play in the fourth quarter.
Ball played into the fourth quarter to earn his third career triple-double. He finished 7 of 11 from the field, helping hand the Hornets their worst loss of the season on the second night of a back-to-back.
Miles Bridges had a career-high 17 points for the Hornets.
James Harden, meanwhile, may be getting on a roll, notching his second straight triple-double to help the Houston Rockets grab their third consecutive win.
Harden had 32 points, 12 rebounds and 10 assists, and the Rockets weathered a fourth-quarter burst to beat the Grizzlies, 105-97, also on Saturday night.
Harden, who had 50 points in a triple-double in the Rockets’ victory over the Lakers on Thursday, recorded his 10th assist on a pass to Clint Capela with 21.3 seconds left as the Grizzlies tried to trap defensively in hopes of whittling the Houston lead in the final minute.
Asked if he would have gotten the assist without the Memphis defensive pressure, Harden replied with a sly grin through his thick, black beard: “That’s a good question. You never know, right?”
Capela’s basket gave him 26 points to go with 10 rebounds. Gerald Green scored 17 points.
Mike Conley led Memphis with 22 points, while Marc Gasol added 17 points and nine rebounds. JaMychal Green had 13 points.
The Rockets made 13 3-pointers, near their average, compared to only five for the Grizzlies.
“We’ve got to do a better job of getting there,” Memphis Coach JB Bickerstaff said of his team’s three-point defense. “We’ve got schemes in place to protect us from those, and we were just late in our rotations.”
The Rockets appeared to be coasting in the fourth, holding a 15-point lead with about seven minutes remaining, but Memphis clicked off a 14-5 run to cut it to 97-91. But the Grizzlies got no closer.
The run was fueled by rookie Jevon Carter making his first appearance of the season. He finished with 11 points with a couple of steals and a blocked shot. His defense sparked the Grizzlies’ rally that at least made the ending interesting.
“It was just good to be out there,” Carter said of his debut, when he guarded Harden and Chris Paul. “It was fun. I’m a competitor. I want to play against the best and at this level, that’s just what it’s going to be night-in and night-out.”
A trio of three-pointers by Gerald Green reversed the momentum gained when Memphis scored 11 straight points to open the third period. Green collected 12 points in the third, helping Houston maintain a 79-65 lead in the fourth.
“Gerald Green came in and gave us a boost,” Rockets Coach Mike D’Antoni said. “It was something that he was missing in the first half, like he was out of wind.”