LeBron James was out with a sore ankle for the Los Angeles Lakers’ Friday night game against the Milwaukee Bucks. In his absence, the team got a superstar performance from guard D’Angelo Russell in the 123–122 win, which had the future Hall of Famer fired up.
Russell led all scorers with 44 points, shooting an impressive 17 of 25 from the field and 9 of 12 from three-point range in the win. He added nine assists and six rebounds in the effort, and scored eight points in the final 73 seconds of the game.
Russell made a floater with little over five seconds left in the game to give the Lakers a one-point lead.
In order to preserve the victory, Spencer Dinwiddie stopped a Damian Lillard jumper during the Bucks’ subsequent possession.
Following the game, James celebrated Russell’s incredible performance on X (previously Twitter) by tagging his 28-year-old colleague and writing, “YEAAAAHHHH 9LO!!!”
Los Angeles (35–30) maintained their lead over the Golden State Warriors as the nine-seed in the Western Conference with the victory, which proved significant. They also defeat the third-place Bucks (41–23), one of the best teams in the Eastern Conference.
