The Los Angeles Lakers managed to clinch the #7 seed in the NBA Play-In, but the matchup against the Denver Nuggets hasn’t gone well so far. LeBron James and company are 0-3 against the reigning champs, leaving LA with no margin for error.
The King understands his team will need to bring its A-game from now on as there will be no more room for mistakes if they want to make a deep playoff run like last year. If there’s one thing the purple and gold should improve, LeBron believes it’s closing games.
“I feel like we spend so much energy in the first half building leads or with the defensive intensity that we come out in the third quarter with not much energy, or kind of lose track of our attention to detail,” James said.
The Lakers blew double-digit leads both in Game 2 and Game 3, starting with a strong performance in the first half but suffering a huge decline after the break. This is something James had already mentioned on Wednesday.
LeBron James dribbling the basketball.
“It’s all about sustainability. It doesn’t matter what you can do throughout the first 47 and a half minutes. You got to finish the game. We got to do a better job of that,” LeBron said.
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The outlook is not encouraging for Los Angeles, who need to pull off a huge comeback to get past the first round of the playoffs. Since Nikola Jokic and company have won the last 11 games against the Lakers, it doesn’t look easy.
But James is still confident on his team. “It’s one game at a time at this point,” LeBron said ahead of Saturday’s Game 4. “As long as you still have life, then you always have belief. You play until the wheels fall off.”
Lakers fans left the Crypto.com Arena upset on Thursday, chanting against head coach Darvin Ham as the team is on the brink of an early playoff exit. On Saturday, we’ll see if LeBron can help force a Game 5.
