Kevin Durant and Devin Booker combined for 63 points on Monday night as the Los Angeles Lakers suffered their first loss of the season in a rematch against the Phoenix Suns, losing 109-105. With 6.4 seconds remaining in the game, LeBron James of the Lakers made it interesting with a gamble from the free-throw line, despite the fact that they were facing an almost insurmountable deficit (under the circumstances).
In the final seconds of the game, with a three-point lead, the Suns chose to send the Lakers to the charity stripe rather than risk a game-tying three-pointer. The Lakers didn’t want to play the foul game since they had no more timeouts. James was told to attempt a second shot at a basket by making the first free throw and missing the second. When James fired the ball directly at the bottom of the front rim, causing it to bounce low, he did offer the Lakers a chance.
“I have to tell you, that was a crazy miss. During his postgame news conference, Redick stated, “I don’t know that I’ve ever seen an intentional miss that hit the bottom of the rim and went straight down,” as reported by @ohnohedidnt24 on X (previously Twitter).
Unfortunately, this strategy failed; Royce O’Neale quickly cleaned up the rebound and sent the ball to Bradley Beal to give the Suns the victory after Jusuf Nurkic was the first to get his hands on the ball. Even if their plan did not work out as planned, Lakers head coach JJ Redick gave James a lot of credit for carrying it out flawlessly.
Even the best teams can’t win every one of their 82 regular-season games, but they will be mad at themselves for losing a really winnable game. Although James’ poor performance on Monday night has raised some minor concerns, the Lakers can still be quite proud of the way they’ve played through their first four games.
Is LeBron James getting older at last?
Monday night was a sobering reminder of LeBron James’ basketball mortality after his long run of excellence. The Suns’ defense against James wasn’t particularly focused on him. James’ drives lacked explosiveness, and the Suns repeatedly walled him off, making it impossible for him to establish any kind of rhythm that evening.
James’ streak of ten or more points was in serious jeopardy in the fourth quarter. With less than two minutes remaining in the game, he had just seven points on 2-13 shooting. The Lakers star saved his streak by making a three-pointer to reduce the Suns’ advantage to one. However, he only finished with 11 points on 21/40/50 splits that evening, which was not particularly impressive by his standards. It’s possible that James will slow down significantly this year.
