Los Angeles Lakers: LeBron James closes out win over Golden State Warriors, 4 lessons

The Los Angeles Lakers are on All-Star break weekend. Hold tight, All-Star Weekend is the next week? Well, tell the Lakers that because the Warriors gave them fits on Saturday night. Lake Show Life breaks down why the Lakers as of this moment can’t beat the LA Clippers in a playoff series.

The Los Angeles Lakers are not the top team in the Staples Center. It’s true and it’s time to face it. Lake Show Life wants to make the statement before the national media catches up. The Los Angeles Lakers are not good enough as of this writing to beat the Los Angeles Clippers.

This is not the same team that raced out to a 24-3 record to start the season. This is not the same team that made it a point to dominate lesser talented teams. This is now a team that depends on the talent and is focused on highlight reels.

They embarrassed themselves against the NBA’s version of Mike D’Antoni and the seven dwarfs, the Houston Rockets. This is a team that rolled out the shortest team in the last 50 years and won.

After the loss, most would believe the Lakers would come out focused and blow the worst team in the NBA out of their new arena. Instead, they came out flat and had so many turnovers (24), they could publish a dessert cookbook.

The defense in the first quarter was so horrid that Frank Vogel, in his first quarter interview with Lisa Salters, claimed his team was “not honoring the game.” Not a ringing endorsement from a championship-contending coach.

Nevertheless, despite the Lakers’ blowing a 21 point lead and allowing Warriors players most have never heard of to have career nights, they managed to win 125-120. For the second straight game, the opponent’s lesser-known players had a field day.

• Marquese Chriss shot 12-of-15 from the field on the way to 26 points and nine rebounds. He had his career-high by halftime.
• Ky Bowman carved up the defense contributed 11 assists and hurt the Lakers in the pick and roll. He scored seven points too.
• Jordan Poole scored 19 points off the bench. What’s worse he scored 12 in the final quarter to make things interesting.

What will cover up the less than ideal play of the team is that LeBron James strolling down memory lane with certain plays. First, let’s go back a few years to when LeBron had taken his talents to South Beach.

Some say the man can’t close, but he does it sometimes.

If you haven’t noticed by now, when the game is on the line, LeBron James will make his move from the left side. A sidestep to the left against Andre Iguodala and complete silence.

Fast forward to 2020, with the same good defense, same move, same result.

Against Golden State, James moved into the top-15 in all-time 3-pointers made in NBA history passing Chauncey Billups aka “Mr. Big Shot”. In this game, he bounced back from a 1-of-8 performance knocking down three shots from distance.

These plays look very good and will dominate the highlight reels until Monday when the Lakers play the Phoenix Suns on Monday. Just like this dunk below emulating the “Icon” Kobe Bryant was a huge deal leading up to this one.

Lake Show Life knew that the play would blow up a little but seriously like this? It was hyped up so much there were comments and criticisms over the camera shots on TNT.

https://twitter.com/YahooSports/status/1225941691892322305

However, the Lake Show Life Lessons message has always been “a win is a win”, no matter how bad the team plays. This win raises the Lakers record to 39-12 with three wins out of their last four. The record is starting to mask the underlying problems of this team.

The Lakers improved to 22-5 on the road, an NBA best. They continue to build on an NBA record 16 straight against Western Conference rivals away from home. Plus, with the Clippers getting blown out, they currently lead the West by three games.

However, most of these wins are against losing teams. They are now 26-2 versus losing teams but just 13-10 against teams with winning records. Since that 24-3 start, the Lake Show is a mediocre 15-9.

Let’s get to Lake Show Life Lessons.