The Los Angeles Lakers’ recent Christmas doldrums continued Monday with a 126-115 loss to the Boston Celtics at Crypto.com Arena where they only led for one minute, 17 seconds.
The Lakers allowed the game’s first 12 points and trailed 30-12 with three minutes, 57 seconds left in the first quarter and 32-23 at the end of the same quarter on Monday.
With Boston leading 47-37 and 6:52 minutes before halftime, Anthony Davis scored five points and Rui Hachimura four as the Lakers then scored nine unanswered points to cut the deficit to 47-46 with 4:51 remaining in the first half.
The Celtics then responded with the next five points on a Kristaps Porzingis 3-point basket and Jrue Holiday’s 14-foot pullup shot.
The Lakers followed by scoring on a 3-point play by Austin Reaves and Taurean Prince’s 3-point basket with 2:04 to play in the first hal, tying the game at 52-52.
Boston answered by scoring the next six points on Derrick White’s 5-foot driving floating shot, two free throws by Jayson Tatum and Porzingis’ 4-foot turnaround bank shot for a 58-52 lead with 1:02 remaining in the half.
The Lakers scored the final five points of the half on a 3-point basket by Prince and Davis’ 4-foot floating shot. The Lakers had one one-point lead and three two-point leads in the opening 2:20 of the second half, but were never ahead again. They trailed 99-90 entering the fourth quarter, pulled to within eight with 10:59 and 9:19 but never closer in losing for the fifth time in six games.
Porzingis led six Celtics in double figures with 28, with Tatum adding 25, Brown 19 and White and Holiday 18 each, respectively.
Davis led all scorers with a season-high 40 points with Prince adding 17 and LeBron James 16.
The Lakers have lost four of their last five Christmas Day games, including their last three. James is the only Laker to have played in all five of those games.
This was the 25th consecutive year the Lakers played on Christmas Day. The last time they didn’t play on Christmas Day was in 1998, when the owners’ lockout of the players delayed the start of the NBA season until February.
With the loss and the New York Knicks’ 129-122 victory over the Milwaukee Bucks, the Lakers now share the lead for most Christmas Day victories.
The Lakers are 24-26 on Christmas Day, including a 4-11 record in their last 15 Christmas Day Games.
The Lakers dropped to 16-15 remaining ninth in the Western Conference, one game behind the idle Houston Rockets (15-12).