Los Angeles Lakers’ LeBron James (Photo by Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images)
The Lakers and Clippers gave us the spectacular basketball ending we’ve all been missing
A meeting between two of the Western Conference’s best delivered more than we ever could have expected. Despite three months off, and having been moved to a literal bubble away from their friends and families, the Lakers and Clippers went down to the wire, delivering body blow after body blow until, finally, mercilessly, the clock reached trip zeros with LeBron James standing tall.
James, Kawhi Leonard and Paul George saved their best for last, with LeBron quite literally putting the team on his back in the final two possessions. ‘The King’ scored the winning bucket on one end, and played lockdown defense on the other in a series of events we’ve grown to expect out of him.
LeBron James turned around an unusually inefficient performance late with the help of some basic fundamentals
“If you don’t hear the whistle, keep playing.” Those words spoken by James to TNT’s postgame crew tell a critical story, as LeBron played through contact on the Lakers’ final offensive possession of the game and managed to put back his own miss despite being surrounded by four Clippers defenders.
On the defensive end, James didn’t give Leonard an inch of space, and then was forced to switch onto George, who had just hit a game-tying three-pointer not a minute earlier. PG13 leaned into James in an attempt to draw some contact, but LeBron stood straight up in the sights of the ref, and George failed to get the call.
James has taken a lot of flack in recent years thanks to some sub-par defense in rather meaningless games, but he’s proven he can still flip a switch (of sorts) when challenged. Leonard and George have his attention, and so do the Clippers.
What that means for the Western Conference remains to be seen.