Five takeaways from the Lakers’ victory over the Hawks

Reporting from Atlanta —  After three consecutive losses, the Lakers clicked into place. They refused to come back from their four-game road trip winless, and beat a good team on Wednesday night. The Hawks had won all three of their previous games.

Here are five takeaways from Wednesday.

1. Lou Williams had a tremendous end to the game, and afterward he rushed off to see his daughters. The Lakers guard, who is a stabilizing force in a young locker room, scored 16 of his 18 points in the fourth quarter.

2. Lakers Coach Luke Walton was asked about Williams’ ability to retain confidence in his shot even after several misses. Walton’s reply: “Him and Nick [Young]. They always think the next one’s going in. For a while there tonight I was wondering if that next one was ever going to go in. They got going.” At halftime, Williams had made one of five shots from the field and Young had made none in his three attempts. In the second half, Young was six for eight and Williams was five of six.

3. A subplot to all this was that D’Angelo Russell clearly took a step forward. Russell played an incredibly well-rounded game. Not only did he lead the Lakers with 23 points, he had eight assists, a steal, three blocked shots and four rebounds. Russell coughed up four turnovers, but his positive impact far outweighed those miscues. “Just trying to find consistency with it,” Russell said, when I asked him how he balanced knowing when to create plays for his teammates and knowing when to shoot. “As long as guys are open, trying my best to get them the ball. There’s nothing hard about that.”

4. The Lakers’ fouling situation improved significantly over where it has been the rest of the season. Sure, they committed 14 fouls by halftime, but so much of that was the Dwight Howard effect that it’s hard to fault them too much. Regardless, things got better in the second half, when the Lakers committed only 11 fouls.

5. There was no Kobe effect on Wednesday night, but Lakers fans were still plentiful at Philips Arena in Atlanta. There were even points in the game when groups of fans dueled with alternating chants of “Let’s go Hawks” and “Let’s got Lakers.” Said Young: “Oh, the crowd was crazy. I thought we were at Staples Center tonight.”

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