Damian Lillard scored 41 points, Jerami Grant made a driving layup with three seconds to play, and the unbeaten Portland Trail Blazers kept the Los Angeles Lakers winless under new coach Darvin Ham with a 106-104 victory.
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Lillard continued his longtime domination of Los Angeles, improving his career average of 28 points per game. Until the final minutes, it didn't look like enough to beat the Lakers as they played their most complete game yet under Ham, the longtime NBA assistant in his first head coaching gig.The Lakers missed 17 of their first 18 3-point attempts of the afternoon, continuing their anomalously poor start to the season from distance.
Lillard scored 21 points while leading Portland to a 55-48 halftime lead despite 12 turnovers. Austin Reaves was responsible for the Lakers' only made 3-pointer in a 1-for-16 first half.Trail Blazers: Simons went 5 for 17 from the field. ... Beat the Lakers in Los Angeles for the first time since December 2020, snapping a three-game skid.
Lakers: Troy Brown Jr. scored four points in 22 minutes in his debut with Los Angeles, which signed the Las Vegas native away from Chicago in July. Brown missed the first two games with a sore back, but was immediately put into the Lakers' rotation in their desperate search for wing shooting.James scored at least 20 points for the 1,134th time in his 20-year career, tying Karl Malone for the most 20-point games in NBA history.