Los Angeles Lakers survive the Miami Heat, 3 lessons

The Los Angeles Lakers and Miami Heat battled in one of the purple and gold’s tougher tests this season. Lake Show Life talks about it in Lake Show Life Lessons!

The Los Angeles Lakers still have not lost outside of the state of California. The Miami Heat hadn’t lost at home. Something had to give on Friday night when the Lakers tried their luck in South Beach. Did LeBron suffer from the “South Beach Flu”?

It takes a game like this one, to truly understand the culture change of the Los Angeles Lakers from last season to this epic run. This team is focused on the big prize and everyone is held accountable.

That includes LeBron James, who got the riot act handed to him by Anthony Davis, DeMarcus Cousins and others. Why? Because James was terrible in the first half. He knew it. His teammates knew it and made sure he knew it.

Shoot, FS-1’s Skip Bayless let the world know about it on social media.

To understand Bayless’ trash talk, you have to understand the trappings of South Beach. Road games against the Miami Heat happen to be the ultimate trap game for the NBA. It is known as the mythical “South Beach Flu”.

The nightlife is great, the scenery, the women. So many distractions to keep NBA players’ minds off the business of winning games. It had worked so far, 12 teams walked in the Heat arena to play. 11 teams walked out with a loss on their resume. The Lakers, on the other hand, are still undefeated outside the state of California.

But this game was a little more difficult than the earlier contest in Staples Center.

The Heat hung around for the full 48 minutes, but the Lakers executed just enough down the stretch to extend the road winning streak to 13 games, winning 113-110.

It wasn’t pretty. Most would think luck was involved as Jimmy Butler missed a potential game-tying 3 point shot at the buzzer. But the numbers are still climbing in the win column.

The Lakers won this game on the glass. The Lakers’ frontline featuring LeBron James, Anthony Davis and JaVale McGee bullied the Heat bigs winning the rebounding battle 50-34.

Who would have thought Kentavious Caldwell-Pope would save the Lakers (Most importantly himself!)  rebounding his missed free throw with under ten seconds left to get back to the line. Caldwell-Pope went back to the line, missed ANOTHER free throw to give the Heat a chance at the end.

KCP would have been in trouble if he had pulled a “Nick The Brick Anderson” to cost the Lake Show the game.

If rebounding won the game, turnovers definitely would have cost the game for the Lakers. They were terrible and the Heat took full advantage. Los Angeles turned the ball over a ridiculous 19 times in the game led by LeBron James setting a career-high for turnovers in a half.

The Lakers have a dominant run going away from the Staples Center:

1. When the Lakers fell behind 51-41 in the first half, it was the team’s first double-digit deficit on the road in their last 3 hours, 43 minutes and 33 seconds of play.
2. LeBron James seemingly can’t win in Miami. He improved to 6-13 at Miami as a visitor. Up until this game, ESPN’s Doris Burke mentioned that he had lost three of his last four. He did alright in home games with the Heat with a record of 163-35.

If this keeps up the Lakers will be the only team with current streaks.

1. They ended Miami’s home winning streak (Was 11-0 at home).
2. They put a dent in the Heat’s record leading at halftime (13-1)  and games where they had led by more than 10 points (14-1).

When it’s all said and done, the Lakers have a six-game winning streak, a 13 game streak on the road and have the NBA’s best record at 23-3. In short, the Los Angeles Lakers are some bad boys.

Let’s get to Lake Show Life Lessons.