LeBron James has rediscovered his groove the past couple of games as he’s been much better shooting the basketball.
Unfortunately for James, his recent performance wasn’t enough as the Los Angeles Lakers lost an overtime heartbreaker against the Atlanta Hawks. James recorded another triple-double of 39 points, 11 assists and 10 rebounds but that ended up being futile in the effort.
The Lakers as a whole looked much more focused and engaged from the opening tip and did well to stay in front for most of the game before miscues down the stretch did them in. James had a chance to win the game in overtime, but his pull-up 3-pointer from well beyond the arc was off the mark.
After the game, James was quick to sum up how the Hawks were able to win, via Spectrum SportsNet:
“They made a couple more plays than we did,” James said.
James also discussed Anthony Davis’ turnovers toward the end of game and had his back, stating that they were not ‘miscues’ that cost them:
“He turned it over, I picked him up and got the block. We got the possession and got it in, they tied it up. Those are not miscues. He turned it over, it’s my job to back him, that’s what teammates do. I got the block off Daniels’ hands and we got the ball back. Got in the ball and they did a great job of tying him up.”
Atlanta got a great second half from Trae Young who caught fire from the field in the third quarter and dished it out to open teammates all night long. Meanwhile, Davis almost had his own triple-double but he made a couple of terrible turnovers that the Lakers couldn’t recover from.
The loss reinforced the notion that the team has very little margin for error to win games even when their two stars are playing at their best. Both James and Davis had their share of poor play against Atlanta, but they were also responsible for doing most of the heavy lifting on both ends of the floor.
Regardless, Los Angeles has no choice but to go back to the drawing even with a much easier opponent on Sunday in the Portland Trail Blazers.
Draymond Green doesn’t believe Father Time has caught up to LeBron James
As is the case every year, there were talks that LeBron James had finally begun to slow down. However, Draymond Green recently came to his defense and said he didn’t think Father Time had caught up James.
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