LAS VEGAS — The Los Angeles Lakers are tied with the Boston Celtics for the most championships in NBA history. But after Saturday night, they are the only team in NBA history to have won the NBA Cup.
Behind a masterful performance from Anthony Davis, who had 41 points, 20 rebounds, 5 assists and 4 blocks, the Lakers won the inaugural in-season tournament with a 123-109 victory over the Indiana Pacers at T-Mobile Arena on Saturday night.
LeBron James, who added 24 points, 11 rebounds and 4 assists, was named tournament MVP.
“We’ve been doing it together for a long time, five years now, and we just figure it out,” Davis said afterward of his interplay with James. “We know each other’s tendencies, what we like to do. Obviously in crunch time, we get to our infamous pick-and-roll and it’s tough to stop.
“We feed off one another. Thursday, LeBron had it going. Tonight, it was me, and he still did his thing.”
“Yeah, we’re sick, frustrated,” Haliburton said. “We just got outplayed tonight from the start of the game to the end of the game. Just didn’t do the job on loose balls, didn’t rebound, didn’t get enough stops when needed. They just outplayed us, and it’s frustrating.
Despite winning the NBA Cup, the Lakers did not gain a victory in the NBA standings. Saturday’s game — which will ultimately be the 83rd of the season for the Lakers and Pacers — did not count as part of the league’s regular-season standings and none of the stats from the game will count toward regular-season totals, either.
What does count, though, is the Lakers becoming the first in-season tournament champions. The victory caps off a tournament that has accomplished what the league hoped it would over the past few weeks and has set itself up to be a permanent fixture on the NBA’s calendar moving forward.
“I don’t think it’s even about the MVP, it’s about us coming together to win this thing,” James told ESPN’s Malika Andrews during the trophy ceremony. “This is the [inaugural] in-season tournament. … Records will be broken, but one thing that will never be broken is to be the first to do something.”
“And we’re the first champions of the in-season tournament, and nobody can ever top that, and it’s great to do it with a historical franchise and just a great cast of funny, engaged, competitive men over here.”