Los Angeles Lakers: 4 lessons from win over LA Clippers

LeBron James may be playing the best stretch of basketball since he left Cleveland!

The website series, Lake Show Life Lessons does not believe in hype and narratives. Let’s get that statement out-of-the-way before you read these words.

LeBron James is playing his best ball since his historical run from the trade deadline through to the NBA Finals back in 2017-18.

Last year, Lake Show Life was all over LeBron James chasing statistics and records while not transferring them to wins and playing winning basketball. Those days are in the rearview mirror as his numbers at 28 points, nine assists and seven rebounds mirror his season averages last season.

If you just read the box scores, it doesn’t look like he had a great game based on Friday’s performance. But he made every critical play to secure the win on Sunday. It seemed that he was attached to every single positive play on the floor.

https://twitter.com/Lakers/status/1236763448857460737

This is some advanced basketball I.Q. folks. Notice the cross-court pass to Avery Bradley who was cooking with fish grease (More on him later!) to knock down a 3-pointer.

A closer look shows his eyes looking Patrick Beverley off to move him out of position to make the pass to a pocket where Bradley moves to receive the pass. Plays like this exposed the Clippers especially Lou Williams as he picked the defense apart.

Now LeBron James is showing what his playoff mode really getting on the floor fighting with Montrezl Harrell and Marcus Morris to get the rebound in crunch time.

What’s huge for the Los Angeles Lakers is the attacking nature of going to the basket to get to the line and actually hit his free throws. Against the Bucks, LeBron shot 12-of-15 from the free-throw line. In this game, he shot 12-of-14. Now instead of bailing out opponents shooting a ton of 3-point shots, he’s punishing them with drives to the basket.

Finally, he took on the challenge of defending Kawhi Leonard. This is the LeBron James, people want to see. These are the challenges the all-time greats accepted in the past. If James wants to be the “Best Player in the World”, this is how he has to do it.