Los Angeles Lakers: 3 Lessons in an offensive beatdown of the Warriors
By Ronald Agers
The Los Angeles Lakers dream: LeBron James gets a triple-double in the easiest way possible!
The one good thing about superstars is that they rarely have two subpar games in a row. Even though the Lakers defeated the Indiana Pacers on Friday night, Lake Show Life did not let LeBron James off the hook for his listless play.
"Lake Show Life sees the star player coasting on a 5-13 shooting night, which included only 2 points (1-4 shooting!) and two bricks from the free-throw line in the last nine minutes of the game. Bottom line, if there’s no Kyle Kuzma or Montrezl Harrell, there’s no win. Period."
Sometimes the staff wonders if the Lakers roster actually reads these reports because LeBron made sure that there was no repeat performance.
It did look like it was going to be a long night for LeBron James when he collected two offensive fouls in the first four minutes of the game. Soon after that, he was holding his left elbow (Funnybone?) going to the bench during a time-out.
However, LeBron got even more aggressive as he attacked the basket and forced the issue on the Warriors frontline which set the tone for the game.
LeBron is trying to find the balance of knowing when to take games over while continuing to find the hot hand as well. The hot hands in the previous game were Montrezl Harrell and Kyle Kuzma, but this game was different. The combination of James taking what the defense gave him along with his teammates shooting lights out, this probably was the easiest triple-double of LeBron’s career!
- This game marks the 4th of the season.
- His 98th regular-season triple-double ranks fifth behind Lakers assistant coach, Jason Kidd (107), Lakers Icon, Magic Johnson (138), Russell Westbrook (151) and Hall of Famer, Oscar Robertson (181).
- Including the playoffs, LeBron has collected 126 triple-doubles.
Games like these are exactly what the Los Angeles Lakers need against Minnesota in the next game as well. Instead of LeBron having to carry the offensive load by himself, the rest of the Lakers roster gave him a balanced spreadsheet of contributions. In 30 minutes of work, LeBron finished with 22 points (8-13 shooting!), 10 rebounds and 11 assists. His plus/minus ratio of +33 was a game-high.
Not only did LeBron play well overall, but he also cleaned up his turnover issues from the first half. He had 5 of the Lakers 11 turnovers in the first half. But after intermission, he had one. The team overall had only 3 turnovers.
Lake Show Life states again that LeBron James has to set the tone for this team to be successful. He is the barometer of the level of play for the Lakers on both ends.
The storyline of this game was the consistent contributions throughout the roster in this game. Read on to see the list of players that shot very well in this game including one who’s jump shot had been M.I.A. for weeks!