The Los Angeles Lakers have now won four in a row coming off an impressive win against the Portland Trail Blazers and Damian Lillard on a historic night for one of the league’s all time greats in LeBron James.
Now 8-3 in their last 11, it seems that some of the minor issues this team was facing early on have been solved. One person that recognized a simple reason why the Lakers have been so successful was Blazers guard Lillard, who cited an abundance of talent as a reason for why they’ve been successful after their 0-3 start.
“They have a lot of talent. I still don’t think that – if you asked them – they would say they’ve gelled how they want to gel. It’s going to take time.” Lillard said. “Like I said, with that type of talent, they could have a night. They can go out there and put a night together and have a huge game. I think tonight they played really well.”
The Lakers have had a few of those nights in the early going, beating the Denver Nuggets in convincing fashion early on. The Lakers also have notched back-to-back victories against the Trail Blazers after falling to them in the series opener.
Their win on Wednesday was in large part thanks to 44 points, 10 rebounds and 9 assists from James. The scoring outburst moved him to fifth on the NBA’s all time scoring list, passing former Laker Wilt Chamberlain.
“When LeBron gets rolling, he’s making shots. It’s one thing when he’s attacking the rim, getting to the line, posting up or whatever, but when he’s hitting threes, you have a completely different problem,” Lillard said of James’ scoring. “He hit some threes, now we’re getting downhill, getting foul calls.
“[Then], we’re tightening up, trying to help out. Guys were hitting shots. Caldwell-Pope, Ball hit a few threes and I think Josh Hart. When those other guys start making threes off of his play, then they become hard to deal with.”
