LOS ANGELES_To start their home slate and to end it, the Los Angeles Lakers won.
On Tuesday night they celebrated a player who earned an unlikely place in the franchise's lore with a critical three-pointer in Game 7 of the 2010 NBA finals against the Boston Celtics. The young Lakers feted Metta World Peace with a 108-96 win over the New Orleans Pelicans.
For the first time in four years, the Lakers are on a five-game winning streak.
"Part of it definitely was for Metta, but it's fun to coach these guys when they're playing the way they've been playing the last few weeks," Lakers coach Luke Walton said. "When they're playing with passion and to compete. When that happens as a coach you can sit back and enjoy that."
World Peace made four three-pointers and scored a team-high 18 points, all in the second half. It was the most he'd scored since November 2013, when he also had 18 points. Brandon Ingram added 15 points with five rebounds and six assists, Jordan Clarkson had 15 points and David Nwaba scored 14.
The Lakers are 26-55, and will finish with the third-worst record in the NBA regardless of what happens Wednesday night in Oakland against Golden State.
That means the Lakers will have about a 47 percent chance of being awarded a pick in the top three during next month's draft lottery. If the Lakers' pick falls out of the top three, they will have to surrender this year's pick to the Philadelphia 76ers and an unprotected first-rounder to the Orlando Magic in 2019
During their winning streak, the Lakers have been playing like a team without anything to lose.
That was technically not true at the start of the streak. Lottery positioning was at stake, but that would have taken losing. On Tuesday night, their penultimate game of the season became a game in which they truly had nothing to lose.
The Phoenix Suns rested star guard Devin Booker in their season finale at Sacramento, in addition to Eric Bledsoe and Tyson Chandler.
Walton still wanted energy from his team. After what he described as a lackluster shoot-around Tuesday morning, he worried how the Lakers would enter the game.
They trailed for much of the first quarter but finished it on a 7-0 run, capped by a three-pointer by Larry Nance Jr. to take a 26-25 lead. At halftime the Lakers led 57-53.
Clarkson made back-to-back three-pointers to start the third quarter, but the star of that period was the oldest player on the floor, as World Peace hustled and scored seven points to receive a standing ovation.
His show was only beginning.
World Peace scored 11 fourth-quarter points, electrifying the crowd, his bench and his coaches with every basket.
He had the ball on the Lakers' last possession. At the top of the arc, World Peace dribbled, Tyler Ennis begged him to shoot, the crowd rose and positioned their cameras for what could be World Peace's last NBA shot. World Peace did not oblige. He just dribbled into a shot-clock violation .
