A 9-9 record entering Sunday, would our week end up in the green or the red?

Our 1st Pick: Spurs at Lakers -2.5

We rode with the Lakers today — our first action on a Lakers game since November 4th — because we knew the Lakers would be highly motivated to bounce back from Friday night’s embarrassing loss.

As he should as the leader with LeBron still out, Anthony Davis took that ugly 3rd quarter against the T-Wolves more personal than anybody else. The T-Wolves outscored the lakers 40-12. AD was pissed and having none of it.

AD carried that fire into Sunday’s matchup against San Antonio, dominating the Spurs early and often, scoring 19 of the Lakers 34 first quarter points. But AD wasn’t the only one ballin’. Keldon Johnson scored 16 quick points of his own to keep the Spurs within striking distance.

Wayne Ellington’s 3s started to fall in the 2nd quarter. The Lakers were pulling away, the lead ballooning to 14 points, before a Spurs 9-0 run sparked by Dejounte Murray brought them right back in it.

A 5-point Lakers halftime lead grew to 11 at the start of the 4th. And here came the Spurs.

Thad Young was getting to the cup, and a Dougie McBuckets 3 cut the lead to just two points with less than 3 minutes to go. It felt like another Lakers collapse could be in imminent, but before we could get too worried, Talen Horton-Tucker scored a nifty and shifty layup, and a missed Denjounte Murray jumper was followed by a Melo 3 to the dome.

The Lakers went back up by 7 and never looked back.

Lakers 114, Spurs 106.

This felt more like a Solid Lock, but the graph from our handy dandy Action Network app sure makes it look like a Pure Lock.

We’ll take a Pure Lock!

AD: 34 points, 15 rebounds 6 assists, 2 steals and a block in 40 minutes.
THT: 17 points on 7-of-14 shooting in 27 minutes and a game-high +14.
Westbrook: 14 points, 11 rebounds, 7 assists, 2 steals and 7 turnovers, but +11!

Lakers Melo continues to be a savior, hitting the biggest 3s when the Lakers need him the most.

Keldon Johnson: 24 points and 6-of-9 from 3.
Dejounte Murray triple-double: 22 points, 10 assists and 10 rebounds.

The Spurs have fallen to 4-9, only the Pelicans (2-12) and Rockets (1-12) have worse records.

The Lakers are 8-6 and play the Bulls tomorrow night, both on the second leg of a back-to-back.

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Our 2nd Pick: Steph Over 29.5 points

Steph had a rough night shooting (for him), sitting at only 11 points at halftime.

Things were looking up when he banked in a deep deep 3 at the 3rd quarter buzzer to give him 20 points going into the 4th. We thought for sure he was going to come through, especially since the game was close.

But he only made two 2s in the 4th quarter and that was it. The Warriors as a whole scored just 14 4th quarter points. A lot of shots Steph normally makes just weren’t falling, 3-of-13 from 3 on the night and 24 total points. (But he did also have 10 assists and was a game-high +14.)

This was a Pseudo Lock, thought we were on our way to a Solid Lock after the 3rd, but it fell short.

Hornets 106, Warriors 102.

However, this was a great win for our beloved Hornets! Charlotte has responded to a 5-game losing streak by winning 3 in a row.

Next up for the Warriors: @Brooklyn Tuesday night on TNT!

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Our 3rd Pick: Suns at Rockets Over 221.5

Things you do not want to hear when you have the Over:

“Not even halfway through the 2nd quarter, and the Rockets have 15 turnovers.”
“JaVale McGee has been the best player in this game.” (After JaVale made a running Kareem sky hook.)

The Suns understood the assignment for the most part, but the Rockets offense was shallow and aimless.

This was another Over that was a definite Anti-Lock. There have been a few of those.

Suns 115, Rockets 89.

After starting 1-3, the Suns have won 8 straight.

Meanwhile the Rockets have the worst record in the league at 1-12 and have lost 11 straight.

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Welp, 1-2 today brings our record this week to 10-11.

Out of those 10 winners:

5 Pure Locks.
3 Comeback Locks.
1 Solid Lock.
1 Squeaky Lock.

Out of those 11 losers:

5 Anti-Locks.
3 Mirage Locks.
2 Slippery Locks.
1 Pseudo Lock.

It’s good to see that we did find a lot more Pure Locks this week.

We had originally planned for this to be a 3-week segment, but some other stuff has come up here at ole HQ. But don’t worry, this won’t be the last you hear from Chasing Pure Locks.

A fresh round of power rankings will be dropping this week, so stay tuned for those.

We love this game!