Lakers 124, Heat 114: Lakers take 2-0 lead despite feisty effort from Miami

The Los Angeles Lakers will take on the Miami Heat in Game 2 of the 2020 NBA Finals in the NBA bubble in Orlando, Florida, at 9:00 p.m. ET on Friday night on ABC. The Lakers put forth a dominant effort in Game 1, winning 116-98 after going down by 13 points in the first quarter. The Heat will be looking to tie the series without two of their top players: Bam Adebayo and Goran Dragic. We’ll be tracking all the action for Game 2 in our live blog. Stay tuned for updates!

Final update — The Lakers took care of the Heat despite a strong effort from the shorthanded squad. Los Angeles won 124-114 behind a big performance from both Anthony Davis and LeBron James. AD dropped 32 points with 14 rebounds and LeBron came one assist and one rebound shy of a triple-double, scoring 33 points with 9 boards and 9 assists. The Lakers ended up covering the -9.5 spread, but if you caught the Lakers before tip, the spread was up to -10.5.

Jimmy Butler had a huge game for Miami to nobodies surprise. He scored 25 points with 13 assists and 8 rebounds with Dragic sidelined. Kelly Olynyk had a huge game with Bam sidelined, scoring 22 points with 9 boards in 37 minutes off the bench. Rajon Rondo was the only Laker to have a decent game outside AD and LeBron, scoring 16 points with 10 assists.

Third quarter update — We’ve got a J.R. Smith sighting everybody! This is an actual game and Smith is in there to end the third. What is going on? The Lakers are still up by 10 points at 103-93 but it’s still pretty shocking that this game hasn’t gotten out of hand. Credit to Miami’s role players who have stepped up with the injuries. The Lakers also aren’t hitting every outside shot and Danny Green is banged up.

Davis is up to 30 points to lead all scorers and sure does look like a Finals MVP through seven quarters of play. Jimmy Butler already has a double-double and is working on a triple-double with 19 points, 10 assists and 6 rebounds.

Halftime update — Okay, that’s more like it. The Lakers are up 14 at halftime, 68-54 over the Heat. To the Heat’s credit, they’ve hung in this game better than we all thought they would. Anthony Davis and LeBron James have combined for 27 points at half. Jimmy Butler is up to 11 points, 8 assists and 5 rebounds with the Heat down Dragic and Adebayo. The Lakers cleared the halftime spread pretty easily with it at 5.5 points. The live line was 10.5 heading into this game and was as low as -8 before all the injuries.

The Heat started Meyers Leonard at center but he only played 4 minutes before leaving. Kelly Olynyk has played the majority of the minutes at center. He’s up to 7 points and 5 rebounds at halftime. Overall, the Heat aren’t doing too bad it’s just tough to compete without Bam and Dragic. We’ll see if Miami has another run or if this will be another blowout by the Lakers.

First Quarter update — The first quarter is over and this is a game. Yes, surprising right? The Heat are only down 29-23 after the first quarter without Bam Adebayo and Goran Dragic. It’s almost like both teams play in the NBA and we shouldn’t have underestimated the Heat. Or the Lakers are just playing down to their competition and not hitting every single shot. Anyway, AD is leading the way for the Lakers with 8 points, as is tradition. Jimmy Butler has 5 points, 4 rebounds and 4 assists for the Heat, which isn’t surprising given there’s no Dragic or Adebayo. The Lakers covered on the first-quarter spread and they’re 5.5 point favorites to lead at halftime.