It took him a little longer than they would have liked, but LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers eliminated the Houston Rockets with a dominant Game 6 performance on the road to advance to the second round.
James has won countless first-round series’ and knows there are greater goals in mind, but he is allowing himself to enjoy this one.
“At this stage of my career, I think I’ve talked about just living in the moment a little bit more and being OK with celebrating the small victories,” James told reporters in Houston after the Game 6 victory.
“I think we should be proud of the way we played, the way we handled this. This is our first time in a playoff series together as a unit and obviously being without our MVP candidate and without AR for the first four games, we had some obstacles obviously.
“And I know they were out a couple of their guys as well. But I thought we answered the call, I thought we answered the challenge. For them to allow me to lead them, that means a lot to me.”
James was sensational in Game 6 as he led all scorers with 28 points to go along with seven rebounds and eight assists in 37 minutes.
After winning the first three games, the Lakers didn’t play well in Games 4 and 5 and appeared to be in some danger of being the first team to blow a 3-0 series lead. James refused to let that happen though, taking a business-like approach to Game 6 to help the Lakers punch their tickets to the second round.
LeBron James appreciates Lakers accepting his leadership
This has been a roller coaster of a season for the Lakers as they looked dead in the water when both Luka Doncic and Austin Reaves went down with injuries at the end of the regular season.
James has stepped up in a variety of ways to keep the team afloat though, and he appreciates his teammates accepting his leadership in the absence of his co-stars.
“I don’t know, it’s next man up. I’ve done it throughout my career for a majority of my career, but they still have to accept it obviously,” he said.
“We were a totally different team before April 2 and for them to accept the fact and allow me to lead them, command them in a way that I think I saw fit while being an extension of our coaching staff when we’re on the floor, like I said, it means a lot to me. I’m happy I was able to do some things out on the floor to make them understand that I guess I know what I’m doing at times and those guys were great this series.”
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