Here’s what you need to know about the Lakers’ back-to-back blowout wins.
They didn’t mean much. And they meant everything.
On Saturday, they beat a Warriors team (129-101) that was without Jimmy Butler, Steph Curry and Kristaps Porzingis. And on Sunday, they beat the Sacramento Kings (128-104), who have the worst record in the league.
Those weren’t standout wins by any means. But they were important because of their timing.
Heading into this weekend, the Lakers had lost three straight games. Morale was down. They were finally healthy. They had no excuses. But they couldn’t figure things out.
Of course, their failings dominated the national sports discourse last week.
Former Laker Byron Scott said he hopes this is James’ last season with the Lakers in an appearance on local radio. Multiple pundits questioned whether Luka Doncic was really a winning player.
In other words, the message was clear: Sound the alarm.
With these wins, the Lakers let out some steam from the pressure cooker.
The last two games were not only check marks in the right column, they were fun.
Against the Kings, there were so many highlights.
There were electric dunks from James, who had 24 points, six assists and two steals. But his favorite moment of the game undoubtedly was when his son, Bronny, made a 3-pointer in the fourth quarter. James held his arms straight and moved them up and down in celebration.
As for Doncic, he had a circus-level highlight reel play. During the third quarter, he slipped, somehow got up fast enough to recover the ball and then made a wild, contested fadeaway 3-pointer.
“I tripped on purpose,” said Doncic, who had 28 points, nine assists and five rebounds. “It was, how do you say, the And-1 Mixtape.”
The good vibes continued into the locker room, where James controlled the aux, dancing to Lauryn Hill and Mary J Blige as he got dressed.
It was a breath of fresh air for a Laker team that needed a break from all of the negativity around them.
Heading into this weekend, not much was going right for them. They had gone 4-4 on their recent eight-game homestand. Then they lost three straight for their third time this season. There were questions over whether their Big Three of James, Doncic and Austin Reaves could make things work.
Things didn’t feel good in Los Angeles.
But in the NBA, things can shift quickly. And they did beginning Saturday in San Francisco.
Here’s the thing: You can tell when James is about to have a good game. He’s either so loose that he looks like a teenager hanging out with his buddies. Or he’s so focused that he drowns out everything around him, zeroing in on whatever’s playing on his headphones as if it were the gospel.
(If James is somewhere in the middle, the Lakers are in trouble that night.)
Well, James was as loose as ever Saturday.
Before the game, he shot around with his 11-year-old daughter, Zhuri, who was on her first father-daughter road trip of James’ 23-season career. She made a trick shot, as well as throwing her father a lob as he completed a two-handed dunk.
After the game, when reporters asked James about Zhuri’s basketball skills, he balked. “She’s a volleyball player,” he said, flashing a smile. “Don’t get my wife mad. My wife is done with this basketball s–t.”
James also trolled his good friend Draymond Green before the Warriors game, blocking his shot as he warmed up. When Green turned around, the two players, who have met in the Finals four times from 2015-2018, exchanged a giant hug.
Against the Warriors, Doncic and James combined for 48 points, 13 rebounds and 17 assists.
Doncic felt the joy, too. The Lakers’ win over the Warriors fell on his 27th birthday.
Before the game, a video surfaced of his teammates singing him happy birthday and giving him a cake. After the game, he quipped in his walk-off interview with ESPN, “No one gave me a gift yet. It’s crazy.”
For the Lakers, things started turning around over the last two games. James, who’s shooting 31.1 percent from beyond the arc this season, made eight of his 11 attempts from that distance. The ball moved among the Big Three seamlessly. They all played with joy.
Now, the test will be whether they can replicate that against teams that aren’t decimated by injuries or in the cellar of the Western Conference.
This weekend marked the Lakers’ first consecutive blowout wins of this season.
The wins may not have been impressive considering their opponents.
But they were crucial considering their necessity.
