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LOS ANGELES – All who paid attention to LeBron James' career – that he turned to Donyell Marshall when he was with the Cleveland Cavaliers, or Udonis Haslem when he was with the Miami Heat – no. should not have been surprised Sunday, with less than 20 seconds and the Los Angeles Lakers lowered by two, James entrusted Kentavious Caldwell-Pope for a 3 points open to try to win it.
"I've always had a chance to shoot a goal," said James about his positioning – two feet in the paintwork with seemingly an angle to sneak a Nikola Vucevic lay-up – when he has chose to send it back to Caldwell-Pope.
"It's not even a question, but you're drawing so much attention to the defense, you know, I had a good shot but he had a really good shot," James said. "And you live with the results."
LeBron James said Lonzo Ball, whose decision-making and active defense in the fourth quarter on Friday night helped the Lakers to beat the Jazz, was beginning to realize his potential.
The Lakers did not score a goal from Lonzo Ball and their defense hardly withstood the Magic.
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The results, of course, were a failure for his less talented teammate and a 108-104 loss to the Lakers, their second to the mediocre Orlando Magic in just over a week.
This is how James approaches the game. This should not be a flash of information. For him, a player who gets a good shot (no matter how good) does not have the same value as a player (whatever his ability) who gets a good shot.
It did not matter that Caldwell-Pope was 1 in 5 in the game at that time – including a 3 missed almost in the same spot on the field barely a minute earlier.
the "Is there more Michael or Magic?" the debate is tired at this stage. James will execute as he intends. And so, similarly, those who oppose James taking the risk of taking the risk of taking a step backward before taking possession of Caldwell-Pope – wished that he would put the ball in Ground against Aaron Gordon, who has been surrounded by five fouls and keeps him on the perimeter – there is no video game controller allowing fans to get James to do what they want.
End-of-game situations are, by nature, significant. It is understandable that they are scrutinized and chosen more than other sequences of the game. And seeing that James resisted his recent tendency to fight free-throws in counterattack when he scored a brace to tie 104-104 with 2:24 to go, it only made the Lakers less brilliant from there even more disappointing. It's understandable too.
| 4th quarter | Lakers action | Goal | LAL win prob |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1:31 | K. Caldwell-Pope Miss 3 | 104-104 | 59% |
| 47.6 | L. James Miss 3 | 104-104 | 55% |
| 18.4 | K. Caldwell-Pope Miss 3 | 106-104, ENT | 35% |
| 8.9 | K. Kuzma Miss 3 | 108-104, ENT | 9.5% |
| >> According to the ESPN victory probabilities | |||
But as the Lakers coach pointed out, Luke Walton, focusing on James and Caldwell-Pope's misses, misses the point.
"We are going to live with these," Walton said. "Absolutely, we will live with those." One of KCP's best shooters, LeBron's one as one of the best finishers in our game. We'll take that into account. This is not for that we lost the match because we missed them and you can find a way to recover that match, but it's in the second and third quarters that we lost. "
L.A was dominated 67-42 in both quarters, while the Lakers' lead in the first quarter with 12 points was brought down to a 16-point hole with a minute to play in the third quarter. According to research conducted by ESPN Stats & Information, the Lakers lost on February 11, 2014 against the Jazz, a double-digit victory after the first quarter, against the Jazz – a game that turned into a defeat at 96 -79.
It looked a bit like a déjà vu after seeing the Lakers in Orlando on November 17th when L.A led 31-25 after the first quarter and ended up losing 130-117. They lowered their guard again.
And it also looked a bit like Friday's bizarre 90-83 victory over Utah Jazz when the Lakers spat 24 turnovers at their highest level of the season. They no longer protected the ball, accumulating 18 turnovers against the Magic, including six belonging to James.
"We need to start promoting basketball again," Walton said. "We have to get our pass again, the less we pass the ball, the more we return it, which should not be the case, but we will have to continue cleaning it as we go."
This is the true consequence of Sunday's match. Rather than learn from the Jazz victory, the Lakers made the same mistakes in Magic's defeat. It happens to young teams. And, as James pointed out, these turnarounds occur with Rajon Rondo, their veteran floor general, spread with a broken hand.
But it is urgent that Los Angeles qualify this season, given that it may be two games of the first day in the West, at 11-8, but that there are only two and a half games left the 13th.
As James's 16-year career shows, the Lakers are perfectly right to rely on his late-season decision early in the season.
Of course, if the Lakers learn their lessons and manage their games better than they did Sunday, those minutes late in the game will have no impact, because the victory will already be completed.
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