ORLANDO, Fla. — The game was sliding away, and with it, possibly his command on the Lakers, when Frank Vogel made a switch. Even though he’d relied on Dwight Howard to help fix some of the Lakers’ defensive issues, the Magic had scored 62 first-half points — the worst team in the NBA feasting against the Lakers’ dissent into chaos.
But Vogel went against his gut, swapping Stanley Johnson for the future Hall of Famer to start the second half and kick-starting a Lakers run that temporarily eased some of the pressure on the team.
With the court open and the Lakers now hitting shots and getting stops, the game totally turned, ending with a 116-105 win.
With Johnson playing with the starters in the third quarter, the Lakers outscored the Magic by 15 — the 10-day player confidently swishing a pair of open 3s while the Lakers recovered some of the swagger they missed in their loss to Indiana.
The Lakers used a 19-2 run to flip the game to start the second half.
LeBron James scored 29 — the last two coming on an alley-oop connection between him and Russell Westbrook to seal the win.
Westbrook added 18 points, 11 rebounds and seven assists one game after being benched down the stretch. Carmelo Anthony scored 23 and two other Lakers added at least 10 off the bench — Johnson and Malik Monk — as the Lakers started their season-long six-game trip with a win.
