The Los Angeles Lakers visited the Smoothie King Center to challenge the New Orleans Pelicans on Wednesday. Though the purple and gold once trailed by 16 points in the third quarter, thanks to the heroic performance of Anthony Davis and LeBron James, the team left with a win of 114-110, extending their winning streak to nine.

This was the first time back to Pelicans' home court for Davis since he was traded to the Lakers, but local fans did not welcome him at all. Every time Davis had the ball, the booing was loud enough to drown out other sounds of the game.

The Lakers felt the hostile attitude as well – the Pelicans' players did not seem to need extra motivation to deliver their best performance. In the first quarter, the team buried a total of nine three-pointers. Brandon Ingram though remained cold in most of the time, he still managed to earn 13 free throws and made all of them to score 23 points. The Pelicans' All-Star guard Jrue Holiday went 4/6 from the three-point line to get 29 points, six rebounds and 12 assists.

Fortunately for the Lakers, they have Davis and James. Davis shot down 41 points and nine rebounds in the game and, more importantly, he stole the throw-in by Holiday, forcing Ingram to commit a foul on him before making the two free throws to help the Lakers expand their lead to four points (114-110) when there were only 4.2 seconds left.

Meanwhile, dropping 41 points also meant that Davis broke the scoring record in the first game against former team. The previous one was 39 points, kept by Kevin Durant, Stephon Marbury and Danny Ainge.

James was not in full power in the first three quarters as he only took seven shots. Nonetheless, when the team really needed him to stand out, he did by putting down 15 points and five assists in the last quarter. When he buried a three-pointer in the middle of Q4, James surpassed Kobe Bryant (37 years, 137 days old) to become the youngest player (34 years, 332 days old) in history to reach 33,000 points.

Are Spurs falling apart?

The San Antonio Spurs began another losing-streak as they were beaten by the visiting Minnesota Timberwolves 113-101 at the AT & T Center. Karl-Anthony Towns scored 23 points 14 rebounds, six assists and Andrew Wiggins got 26 points, eight rebounds, two blocks.

After Wednesday's loss, the Spurs ranked only No. 13 in the Western Conference, only above tanking Memphis Grizzlies and the Golden State Warriors which only had fewer than 10 players to use.

What's happening off the court may worry the team even more. DeMar DeRozan this week cleared his Instagram. If you recall, the last time he did so happened in 2018, right before the Toronto Raptors traded for Kawhi Leonard. Rumors about the Spurs trying to get rid of him have never disappeared in the past year. It's hard for people not to wonder if there's anything going on under the table.

The other headache of the team is still on social media platforms. Dejounte Murray unfollowed the Spurs, his teammates Patty Mills and LaMarcus Aldridge. This summer, the team signed a four-year, 64-million-U.S.-dollar contract with Murray, sending a message that the Spurs wanted to keep him as a cornerstone. Nonetheless, the 23-year-old guard did not show any improvement on his offensive shortcoming and, after 13 games, lost his position in the starting-lineup.

Since the trade drama of Leonard, the questioning against Gregg Popovich's coaching method has been haunting the Spurs. Now that the team are facing the worst situation in over a decade, different problems will understandably show up. In sports competition, winning is the best, if not the only way to respond to questioning and doubts. However, today's Spurs have neither the necessary resources to win, nor the attractive leverage to make a change via trade.

Other games on Wednesday included (home teams in bold):

Detroit Pistons 101-102 Charlotte Hornets

Orlando Magic 116-104 Cleveland Cavaliers

Utah Jazz 102-121 Indiana Pacers

Sacramento Kings 91-97 Philadelphia 76ers

New York Knicks 98-126 Toronto Raptors

Los Angeles Clippers 121-119 Memphis Grizzlies

Atlanta Hawks 102-111 Milwaukee Bucks

Washington Wizards 140 - 132 Phoenix Suns

Oklahoma City Thunder 119-136 Portland Trail Blazses

Chicago Bulls 90-104 Golden State Warriors

Miami Heat 108-117 Houston Rockets