The Los Angeles Lakers grinded out a win against the Chicago Bulls behind Julius Randle's career-high 20 rebounds. He also made the game-winning layup to seal the game for the Lakers. The final score of the game was 96-90.
Randle finished the game with 13 points and 20 rebounds. Nine of his 20 came on the offensive end. The Lakers outrebounded the Bulls, which is an elite rebounding team, 60-46.
The Lakers were without two of their offensive weapons: D'Angelo Russel (knee) and Nick Young (calf). They lost to the New Orleans Pelicans the night before while the Bulls had four days rest. One would think they would throw in the towel and start making excuses...they didn't. They played with a level of aggressiveness that every coach would want on their team.
"Our guys have proven that when their backs are against the wall they can step up for a challenge," Luke Walton said. "They did it tonight. That's a great win against a very good team," he added.
Although they committed a season-high 23 turnovers, they made up for it with their defense. They held the Bulls to just 35.2 percent from the field, including 19 percent from 3-point range. In their last meeting, Jimmy Butler smoked them with 40 points. In this game, they limited Butler to just 22 points on 4-18 shooting.
Walton pointed out that the only thing that they talked about before the game was defense. Brandon Ingram was assigned to defend Butler and they constantly sent some help defense to limit his production.
And when the Lakers needed to score, they relied on their ball movement and got everybody involved. Five players (Luol Deng, Randle, Jordan Clarkson, Lou Williams, and Larry Nance JR) scored in double figures and their bench outscored the Bulls bench 54-16.
D'Angelo Russel will be out for at least another week and Nick Young at least two weeks. Right now the Lakers are playing good team basketball and they have to keep doing that until they get back to full strength.