LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers find themselves on the brink of elimination after dropping Game 3 at home to the defending-champion Oklahoma City Thunder.
All three games have followed a similar script with the Lakers keeping up with the Thunder in the first half, and even taking a lead, before completely falling apart in the third quarter. After Game 3, James admitted L.A. lacked energy coming out of halftime and Oklahoma City took advantage.
“Well, I mean obviously the third quarter, we’ll start with that,” he said. “We didn’t have the energy, the effort and they put a thirty-plus point quarter on us. That kinda took care of the game right there, honestly. We had moments, obviously in the first half, that was really good for us.
“We did a good job of sharing the ball and knocking down shots. But that third quarter, we didn’t knock down shots. We didn’t defend or get stops, I would say. We defended, we didn’t get stops, and it allowed them to kind of take control of the game.”
The Lakers have been outscored by 31 points in the third quarters alone in the three games of this series, leaving James searching for answers.
“I don’t know, but obviously the numbers speak for themselves,” he concluded.
The Lakers have led at halftime in each of the last two games, but their lack of depth has really shown up in the second halves compared to the Thunder. As James said, the Lakers have lacked energy while the Thunder seem to be just getting going on both ends of the floor.
Even when their MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander has been on the bench, their other players have stepped up by going on runs to break these games open. That is a tough pill to swallow if you are the Lakers and missing your own best player in Luka Doncic, but it’s just the reality of the exceptional roster Oklahoma City has built using all of its assets the last few years.
Alex Caruso not counting LeBron James out
The Thunder are obviously in the driver’s seat in this series, but Alex Caruso recently cautioned his team, knowing full well what James is capable of.
“Everyone likes to talk about his age but it’s still LeBron James. He’s still very capable of being the best player on the court any given night that he’s playing the game,” Caruso said after Game 1. “Just having that respect for him and then understanding that he’s very smart and uses the game to his advantage a lot with putting guys in position to create advantage and then take away advantage on the other end.”
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