LeBron James tried to be Kobe Bryant last night
LeBron James tried to be Kobe Bryant last night
As we all know by now, Los Angeles Lakers will not be in the playoffs this year and this marks the first time since 2007 when neither LeBron James or Kobe Bryant will be in the Finals. We can all find different reasons and arguments why the Lakers played so bad, we can say that they didn’t have any luck or that they had a lot of injuries and that’s true.
However, they lost a lot of games against bad teams and that is inexcusable. For example, last night they played against the New York Knicks, which is the last team in East. The Lakers controlled the second half of the game and they were leading by 11 points with almost 4 minutes left. But, then they lost themselves and they ended up losing the game by one point.
In my opinion, of course, that all the players should be blamed for this loss but I think that LeBron James deserves the most criticism for how he handled the end of the game. So let’s look at the last 4 possessions that the Lakers had.
With 1:41 left in the game, the Lakers lead with 123-118 and LeBron James has the ball. Kyle Kuzma is left alone in the corner but James chooses to keep the ball. This can be a good choice because the Lakers should indeed run the clock but they should also try to score. Instead, LeBron James sits outside the three-point line with the ball in his hands and then shoots with the defender in his face and misses.
Then, Kyle Kuzma fouls De’Andre Jordan and the big man scores both of his free-throws. At the next possession, LeBron James continues to try to do everything by himself, he goes inside the paint and gets blocked by Jordan. At the other end, Dotson scores an easy layup and the score becomes 123-122 for the Lakers. Luke Walton calls timeout and after the game is resumed, LeBron James waits for 7 seconds and then he shoots a jump shot which he misses.
The ball returns to the Knicks and Emmanuel Mudiay is fouled so he goes to the free-throw line where he doesn’t miss. Therefore, with 22 seconds left, the Knicks regained the lead, 124-123. On the final possession, LeBron James dribbles the ball for almost 20 seconds and then tries to get inside the paint to score in the last second. This didn’t happen as James got blocked by Mario Hezonja and so the Lakers lost the game.
Of course, James had an amazing game, scoring 33 points and adding 6 rebounds and 8 assists but I still think he should have handled the last minutes in a different way. LeBron James tried to be the hero, he tried to be Kobe Bryant but he isn’t that clutch and he didn’t take the right decisions. I know that when he gets inside he is almost unstoppable and maybe that’s what he had to do instead of shooting those two jump shots. Or maybe he should have trusted his teammates and passed the ball to Kyle Kuzma when he was wide open.
However, the game has ended and there is nothing that he can do anymore. This has been a horrible season for the Lakers and for Lebron James so hopefully, they will be able to sign a big free agent this summer which will get them to the playoffs next year.
LeBron James tried to be Kobe Bryant last night
