Tuesday was not a happy 41st birthday for LeBron James, at least on the court.
The Detroit Pistons defeated his Los Angeles Lakers 128-106 at Crypto.com Arena to improve to an Eastern Conference-best 25-8. They also snapped a two-game losing streak in the process and look the part of a true contender in the early going this season.
Cade Cunningham finished with 27 points, 11 assists and five rebounds on 12-of-19 shooting from the field, while Marcus Sasser (19 points and five assists on 4-of-6 from deep) and Isaiah Stewart (15 points) provided a lift off the bench to help account for Tobias Harris exiting in the first quarter with a hip injury.
As for the Lakers, they are still a solid 20-11 overall but fell to just 1-4 in their last five games as their struggles with consistency following a 15-4 start continued.
Luka Dončić did what he could with 30 points, 11 assists and five rebounds, but even he had eight turnovers as the Los Angeles offense wasn't able to score enough points to account for its poor defense.
Social media called out the Purple and Gold for yet another loss:
It didn't help the Lakers that both Austin Reaves and Rui Hachimura were out with injuries. That put more of the onus on James to provide support for Dončić, but he struggled with his shot at 6-of-17 from the field for 17 points with five turnovers.
The home team finished with 20 turnovers on the contest and looked out of sorts for extended stretches.
"We haven't had a full team all year," James told reporters. "... That's very hard to kind of get a rhythm, you know, chemistry on the floor with guys you're going to play with every night."
Detroit jumped out to a double-digit lead in the first half, although the Lakers found their shooting stroke late in the second quarter. That momentum continued after intermission with Dončić finding openings in the defense, and he tied it up with an and-1 play in the third quarter.
However, the offense went missing the rest of the way.
Los Angeles managed just eight points in the first eight minutes of the fourth quarter, which allowed the Pistons to pull away against one of the league's worst defenses.
Cunningham spearheaded the balanced attack for the visitors against that defense as they made sure there was no drama in the stretch run.
It wasn't a good enough effort for the Lakers against one of the NBA's best teams, and now they are left with even more question marks heading into back-to-back home games against the Memphis Grizzlies starting Friday.
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