Los Angeles Lakers: LeBron James saves the game and dominates OT
By Ronald Agers
Check out our four lessons from the Los Angeles Lakers come from behind, overtime victory over the Dallas Mavericks.
The Los Angeles Lakers by all intents and purposes should have lost this game. Seriously. The Dallas Mavericks had the Lakers down by three with six seconds to go. Then LeBron James reminded people exactly who he is. Lake Show Life breaks down possibly the game of the year so far in Lake Show Life Lessons!
The Los Angeles Lakers should have lost this game. They had no business winning. All the Dallas Mavericks had to do was basically stay on the shooters and avoid the vaunted drive and kick play made famous by the San Antonio Spurs. Oh yeah, that’s right, Danny Green was on that team.
But first, let’s talk about the first 48 minutes or maybe the 24 minutes of a triple-double showdown courtesy of Luka Doncic and LeBron James.
The two both collected triple-doubles setting a record for an age difference between players with triple-doubles in the same game. This is a Lakers website but game recognizes game here.
Doncic fought off a possible concussion and bloody scalp after colliding with Dwight Howard‘s dental work to score 31 points, grab 13 rebounds and dish out a career-high 15 assists. The Lakers had no answer for a kid growing up idolizing James. He abused them time and time again with his handles and alley-oop passes.
Now this LeBron James dude. Understand he’s probably was in the locker room irritated he missed the free throw that would have netted him 40 points. Hey LeBron, from the Lake Show Life to you, it really does not matter. This performance makes up for the Clippers malfunction.
Why? Because when the man truly cares, he messes around and does things like this.
https://twitter.com/Lakers/status/1190482104309571584
James blows by Delon Wright and drives the ball toward the basket. Danny Green slides over to the right corner and drops a 3-point shot with no time left to send it into overtime. He snatched the game from the jaws of defeat.
Two things need to be pointed out on the play.
Number one, what in the world was the Mavericks thinking collapsing on James when they were ahead by three points? They could have given up the basket to LeBron and the game would have been over.
Number two, Dwight Howard got away with a SERIOUS hold on Seth Curry which threw his rotation off to allow Green to pump fake and get the shot off.
James turned back the hands of time, collecting his second triple-double of the season with a stat line of 39 points, 12 rebounds and 16 assists. After the game went into overtime, Anthony Davis joined in on the fun as the combo scored every point in OT but one (Danny Green scored it!) as the Lakers outlasted the Dallas Mavericks 119-110.
Before we get to the good stuff, a Kyle Kuzma update.
Kyle Kuzma finished his debut for the Lakers with nine points and three rebounds in 19 minutes. Frank Vogel will have him on a minutes restriction for a while after dealing with a stress reaction in his right foot. Kuzma was active and played well considering this is his first game action all year-long. Welcome back Kuz, stay healthy.
Let’s get to Lake Show Life Lessons.