Despite a herculean effort from LeBron James, the Los Angeles Lakers were unable to get the job done against the New Orleans Pelicans on Sunday night.
James scored 39 points, with 25 of them coming in the first half. However, disaster nearly struck when James turned his ankle and spent time down on the floor.
The 37-year-old was able to remain in the game, but he later said that he had no clue how he was able to keep playing.
“I’ve turned my ankles before, obviously. Tonight was just one of those instances where, I actually just watched the replay and I was going in for an offensive rebound and me and Jaxson essentially stepped at the same time. He got his foot on the ground before I could get my foot back on the hardwood and I stepped on his foot and rolled my ankle. I have no idea how I finished that game, to be honest, after watching that replay. It’s pretty nasty,” James said after gingerly limping up to the podium after the game.
As far as how it felt at that time, James also admitted that he was in a lot of pain.
“It’s horrible. It’s horrible right now and unfortunately we’re about to hop on the flight too. So just got to get treatment around the clock, see what happens day to day. But it’s pretty sore right now.”
This was a game the Lakers needed to win in order to comfortably maintain their Play-In Tournament spot, so James acknowledged that he might not have returned had the stakes not been so high.
“Probably not. Probably no,” he admitted. “From the time I turned my ankle, I felt a sharp pain on my leg and it started getting hot, I’ve been there before with ankle sprains. But I didn’t want to come out of the game because I understood that I just wanted to win the game, understood how big of a game it was for us.”
As of now, it remains to be seen whether or not James will be able to suit up for Tuesday’s game against the Dallas Mavericks, but hopefully he can because the Lakers will definitely need him if they hope to win.
LeBron James says he lost explosiveness after ankle turn
James was a force getting into the paint before tweaking his ankle, so it was no surprise to hear him later say that it affected how he approached the rest of the night offensively.
“For me personally, I just lost all explosiveness. So a lot of my game tonight was playing on the perimeter after that fact. Couldn’t really get into the lane like I would’ve loved to to put a little bit more pressure on them. We only shot 16 free throws as a team, I shot six of them and one of them was a technical foul so it took away from me and what I wanted to do in the interior. But I feel like I just tried to do what I could do with the mobility I had out on the floor, tried to make plays.”
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