LOS ANGELES — With a trip to Las Vegas and a cash prize on the line, LeBron James and Anthony Davis went to their moneymaker.
James motioned for Austin Reaves to clear out from the right wing and dribbled around a high screen from Davis, baiting the switch from Jusuf Nurkić. James galloped past Eric Gordon, his on-ball defender, took one dribble and glided past the outstretched arms of Nurkić and Grayson Allen for a layup.
Advertisement
The pivotal basket put the Lakers up by five points, 102-97, with 2:20 remaining.
It also capped a ridiculous fourth-quarter stretch in which James scored or assisted on the Lakers’ first 19 points (15 points and two assists). He finished with 31 points, eight rebounds, 11 assists and a season-high five steals in 40 minutes in a 106-103 In-Season Tournament win over the Phoenix Suns on Tuesday at Crypto.com Arena.
Los Angeles improved to 13-9 and fourth in the Western Conference and secured the last semifinal spot in the inaugural NBA In-Season Tournament. The Lakers are 5-0 in the tournament and will play the New Orleans Pelicans on Thursday in Las Vegas.
“I mean, no disrespect to anybody else, he’s the best quarterback in the NBA,” head coach Darvin Ham said of James. “And that’s bar-none. He understands those moments and what we’re trying to get out of certain possessions, when we need to be aggressive going downhill, when we need to be more methodical. … So, that’s just him being who he has been his whole career, his entire career. So, there’s nothing shocking about that.”
James methodically dissected the Suns’ defense in the fourth quarter through a combination of opportune transition baskets and surgical pick-and-roll reads. He targeted Allen, Nurkić and Drew Eubanks, calling for the teammate they were defending to screen for him, and occasionally throwing in a decoy action to prevent the Suns from pre-switching.
It was the type of masterful performance that has come to define James’ legendary career.
“He did a good job of manipulating the game, especially in the fourth quarter,” Davis said. “And that’s when it’s money time. And he’s been very successful in that quarter to take over games and give us a chance to win ball games.”
Advertisement
James’ 21st season is just as ridiculous if not more so than his first 20 seasons. He’s remained a top-10 player despite his 39th birthday being less than four weeks away. He’s arguably the most clutch player in the NBA, with Tuesday’s fourth-quarter performance the latest feather in his crunchtime cap. He’s inexplicably posting the best 2-point percentage of his career (62.6 percent), the second-best 3-point percentage (38.7 percent) and the third-best true shooting percentage of his career (63.4 percent).
“I think it’s definitely more mental than physical at this point of my career,” James said. “Just mentally showing up hours and hours and hours before the actual game to start to prepare my mind, body and soul for however many minutes I’m going to play. And commanding the most out of my teammates, commanding the most out of myself and holding everybody accountable, including myself. The mental side is definitely the most stressful than the actual body.”
Here’s an example of James attacking the Suns’ weak spot defensively: He calls for a screen from Cam Reddish, which is really meant to clear out that side of the floor and set up a second screen from Rui Hachimura, who’s being defended by Allen — James’ target.
James gets Allen switched onto him and drives before the Suns can properly adjust and rotate on the backside. As they start to converge on him, James rises up for the easy fadeaway jumper in the middle of the paint.
One of James’ two fourth-quarter assists was to Davis, who had 27 points and 15 rebounds, in another sequence in which he demonstrated great patience and calculation.
After a pick-and-roll earlier in the possession forced Nurkić onto James, he decided to kick the ball out to Reddish and reset. Upon recollecting it, he isolated Nurkić and drove left, knocking Nurkić to the ground before falling himself. Before descending, James fired a shovel pass to Davis, who cut from the dunker’s spot for an open reverse layup.
“We like to put the ball in his hands and really make plays,” Davis said. “Whether it’s scoring, which he was able to do tonight and almost every other night, or it’s making plays for someone else. That’s crunchtime.”
Advertisement
And it wasn’t just the offensive end. James had a season-high five steals, acting as the Lakers’ free safety to intercept and deflect passes when the Lakers trapped Devin Booker (seven turnovers) and Kevin Durant (five). James’ anticipation remains elite, and he was able to snuff out plays in several key junctures.
As always with James, it wasn’t just about him scoring or dominating the ball. The biggest play of the game didn’t involve James, with him taking a backseat to the Reaves-Davis pick-and-roll as a decoy away from the fray. The Lakers continued to attack Allen, Reaves’ defender. With both Allen and Davis’ man, Durant, going with Davis on the roll, Reaves had enough space to knock down the dagger 3.
“I looked over and Bron was pointing towards me,” Reaves said. “… At that point, there’s nothing else to do but go make a play. And you know I made the shot and we go home happy.”
“He’s done it,” James added.
The wild game was not without drama and controversy, as tends to be the case with close Lakers games.
GO DEEPER
Suns question controversial timeout call at end of loss to Lakers
With 11.0 seconds left, James inbounded the ball to Reaves. Booker and Durant, both having five fouls, trapped Reaves but tried to avoid fouling him. They were able to knock the ball loose with contact, but the Lakers were awarded a timeout as James had signaled to the closest referee during the scrum. It appeared to be a late timeout call that occurred after Reaves had already lost control of the ball, leading to an irate reaction from the Suns.
The referees reaffirmed their perspective in the postgame pool report.
“During live play, the official felt that L.A. still had possession of the ball when LeBron James requested the timeout,” referee crew chief Josh Tiven said. “Through postgame video review in slow motion replay, we did see that Austin Reaves had his left hand on the ball while it’s pinned against his left leg, which does constitute control.”
Advertisement
The Suns took incredible offense to the call, feeling it should’ve been their ball down two.
“All I saw, I was able to hit AR and I felt Book kind of pushed up on him a little bit, made AR stumble,” James said. “And as soon as I saw AR start to stumble a little bit, I started to make the notion and the voice to the referee that was closest to me for timeout. … But my direction was right towards the referee to get us a timeout, for sure.”
“I thought Book ran into me,” Reaves said. “And it’s late game and I don’t know if they were trying to foul or what, but there was no call. And obviously, Bron made a high IQ play as he’s probably done a million times in his career and called timeout.”
Davis was eventually fouled, but he missed one of two free throws. Durant, who also had 31 points, air-balled the potential game-tying 30-footer.
Controversy aside, this was an identity win for the Lakers. Now that they are nearly whole — Gabe Vincent remains out for an unknown amount of time — they could no longer fall back on their recent framing that their inconsistent play was because of their injuries and rotating rotations.
And they didn’t need to: They forced the Suns into 22 team turnovers and attacked Booker and Durant defensively, getting both into foul trouble, which was a significant factor down the stretch.
The Lakers won with their strengths: James’ heroics and their defense, spearheaded by Davis and bolstered by the likes of Reddish, Jarred Vanderbilt and Max Christie. All of a sudden, the Lakers have an army of long, athletic wings who can switch across multiple positions and swallow up driving and passing lanes. They also grabbed a season-high 21 offensive rebounds — nearly doubling their previous season-high of 13 on opening night in Denver.
They still have to improve offensively in big games and moments — they shot just 37.3 percent overall and 30 percent on 3s, and only three Lakers scored in double figures — but their identity is crystallizing as a big, long team that’s elite defensively and just good enough offensively with its rim-attacks and foul-drawing.
Advertisement
Ham, who in the pregame said the Lakers players are “well aware of that bag” and that “money speaks,” changed his tune after the victory, stating that this was a measuring-stick game for the Lakers given the caliber of their opponent (the Suns were a preseason contender and had won eight of 10 games before Tuesday’s tilt).
“Money on the line or not, this was going to be a hotly-contested game and so I love it,” Ham said. “It allows you to see early what you are made of and who can get you what at what moment and it’s refreshing to come out on the right side of a game like this. This game had, for it to be our 22nd game of the season, it had a ton of playoff intensity.”
James acknowledged the stakes and incentive of the In-Season tournament has been enough to draw the best out of him. Across the five games the Lakers have played, he is averaging 26.2 points (on 56.5 percent shooting and 57.1 percent 3-point shooting), 8.0 rebounds, 8.2 assists and 1.8 steals in just 31.6 minutes per game. The Lakers are plus-61 in James’ 158 minutes.
“You got some of the most alpha male competitors in the world, and if you give us an opportunity to play for something meaningful with an incentive, then you’ll get what you’re getting,” James said. “The In-Season Tournament is what it is, and we have an opportunity to play on a big stage, be on national television, be able to represent our families and represent our cities and communities, where we come from.”
He also has another incentive — one no other athlete has ever been able to accomplish.
“I want to continue to defy the odds,” James said. “Continue to have this battle with Father Time that for so long has, everybody said has been undefeated. So, I’m trying to give him one loss.”
(Photo of LeBron James: Adam Pantozzi / NBAE via Getty Images)
