Los Angeles Lakers: 3 Lessons from the win over Oklahoma City Thunder

LeBron James had some bad habits come back, but tightened up to close the game out for the Lakers.

LeBron James continues to show why he is the front-runner for MVP after the month of the season. His numbers of 23 points, 14 assists and 6 rebounds does not entirely show the impact that he had in the game. The Lakers could have easily lost this game when the Thunder had the momentum after the Rondo incident. But timely plays to set Anthony Davis up late in the game allowed the Lake Show to survive.

This is not the LeBron from last year. In the past, James would camp out at the 3-point line and shoot a side step shot. Right here, you could see he was going to make something happen. Even though he missed the lay-up, he still had the presence of mind to grab the rebound and hit AD with a perfect pass. Davis knocks down the corner 3-point shot, gets fouled by Steven Adams and the Thunder couldn’t get over the hump after that.

James’ accomplishments are being tallied by the game at this point. LeBron has had at least 10 assists in seven straight games, a career high. It also represents the longest by a Lakers player since Magic Johnson had 10 straight in 1990-91. He is basically rewriting the NBA and Lakers record books at the same time.

At this point in the season, the game has slowed down that he seems to be two to three steps ahead of everyone else. On Tuesday, LeBron closed out the first half with a high-flying dunk. This time, he burned OKC with the pass.

Catching a full court pass with one hand, James hits Kentavious Caldwell-Pope with a perfect pass and KCP handles the rest. This play shows how well King James is playing so far.

However.

James defense took a few steps back. He missed quite a few rotations that allowed the Thunder to get easy layups. The worst one was when Darius Bazley had an easy route to the basket for a slam dunk. LeBron was supposed to block the lane. He didn’t.

These are easy discussions to talk about when the Lakers are winning and playing teams with less talent. The Thunder probably played their best game of the season, but it still couldn’t match the talent of the Lakers.

However, the tough part of the schedule will be here before you know it and defensive breakdowns like LeBron’s throughout the game won’t cut it.