At the end of his 21st NBA regular season, LeBron James looked energized, strong on both ends of the court, and ready to do well in the playoffs.
James scored 28 points, dished out 17 assists, grabbed 11 rebounds, and stole five balls as the Los Angeles Lakers beаt the New Orleans Pelicans 124–108 on Sunday to move into the eighth spot in the Western Conference. The Pelicans lost their chance to be in the top six, which was their goal.
“I want to win.” “So, whatever the game calls for me to be,” James said. James is also the main blocker for Pelicans star power forward Zion Williamson. “My nаme is Swiss Army Knιfe. I have to do everything on the floor, and nothing is set in stone.
Anthony Davis scored 30 points and grabbed 11 rebounds against the team that picked him first in the 2012 NBA draft. This set up a rematch for Tuesday night in the conference play-in at the same building.
Davis asked to leave the game in the last few minutes and walked slowly back to the locker room while holding his lower back. He said that his back “locked up” when he was pushed from behind while he was in the air, but that his ιnjury was “nothing concerning.”
Davis said, “There’s no doubt that I’m going to play” in the play-in game on Tuesday. “Get some rubs and treatments, and don’t tighten up. “Just wait and see how I feel in 36 hours.”
James’s triple-double was his fifth of the season, and he helped lead Los Angeles to a 68-42 win over New Orleans in the paint by setting up plays.
Williamson said, “They got what they wаnted in the paint.” “They beаt us in the paint.”
James said that his goal was to “read the game and just find my teammates.”
“Just try to get the ball to the right people at the right time for jump shots or guys at the basket,” James said. “Just making sure that my play is very efficient.”
Williamson scores 23 points per game on average for the Pelicans; James helped hold him to 12 points.
“What a beast! James said of Williamson, “It’s almost impossible to stop him.” “Just keep your body on him and try to make things hard for him.”
While this was going on, Williamson scolded himself for “being too passive.”
He said, “I don’t think I was really meаn the whole game.”
Dallas Smith scored 19 points and Austin Reaves scored 20 for the Lakers, who won eight of their last eleven regular-season games.
The Pelicans were trying to secure a No. 6 spot and avoid the play-in round, and CJ McCollum scored 23 points. They had just won four straight road games and had just added high-scoring wing Brandon Ingram to their lineup. However, they struggled at home and lost.
Instead, it was a lot like the NBA In-Season Tournament playoff in Las Vegas in December, when the Lakers beаt the Pelicans 133–89 to win badly.
Their coach, Willie Green, said, “They punched us right in the mouth and they kept going.” It was a great chance that we missed.
He had missed 12 games with a sprained left knee, but Ingram scored 13 points. They got 18 more points from Herb Jones.
The Pelicans were ahead 28–24 after Ingram’s three-pointer at the end of the first quarter, but the Lakers went to the foul line because of what looked like a mistake by the refs.
John Goble, an official, said that Los Angeles should have been given free throws for the Pelicans’ second foul in the last two minutes of the period but wasn’t. Taurus Prince made both of them.
The Lakers then made the first basket of the second quarter, a driving layup by Prince that made it 32-24. James then made a reverse layup that started a 9-0 run that made it 41-26.
The Pelicans missed 14 of their first 19 three-point shots, but the Lakers were getting long rebounds and making shots in motion.
Reaves’ 3-pointer and dunk from behind the arc gave the Lakers their first 20-point lead, 53–33. It was 70–53 after another Reaves three.
In the beginning of the third quarter, Reaves made a three-pointer, Russell made two more, and Davis scored a flying dunk that made the score 83-57 for the Lakers.
The Lakers had their biggest lead yet, 91-59, after Russell made another three-pointer.
Williamson said, “We need to get back together as a team because we’re here now.” “We still have faith, even though we didn’t get the result we wаnted.”
