‘We’re not where they are’: LeBron James, Lakers dismiss any long-term concerns following loss to Celtics
"We can compete versus anyone in this league. So, we’ll be fine."
Saturday’s Lakers-Celtics matchup was billed as a potential NBA Finals preview. If it was a taste of what’s to come in June, Los Angeles has plenty of things it needs to work on.
The Celtics were able to take down their top rival on Saturday, winning 111-101 thanks to dominant performances from Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown. As the two scored a combined 71 points, Boston’s all-around effort helped it outscore Los Angeles 29-13 in the third quarter, giving the Celtics a commanding 20-point edge entering the fourth.
LeBron James and Luka Doncic, meanwhile, didn’t have their best showings in the first three quarters of Saturday’s game. James scored 16 points on 8 of 18 shooting from the field through the first 36 minutes of play, failing to make a 3-pointer at all. Doncic had 20 points on 6 of 15 shooting in that same stretch before scoring 14 points in the fourth quarter to help cut into the Celtics’ lead.
While the Lakers’ offense was in the mud for a long stretch of Saturday’s game, James isn’t sounding any alarms about how his team matches up with the Celtics.
“We can compete versus anyone in this league. So, we’ll be fine,” James told reporters. “We got to continue to build our habits. We’re not where they are, the defending champion. And they’ve been playing basketball together for a long time. And they got a great chemistry and know what they want to do.”
A big reason for the Lakers’ offensive woes on Saturday was Al Horford. Los Angeles made it a mission to attack Boston’s starting center, isolating him 23 times, per Second Spectrum. That plan came to no avail, though, with James and Doncic shooting a combined 3 of 14 when Horford was guarding them in isolation, according to ESPN Stats & Info.
The Lakers were at their worst offensively in the third quarter. They only scored two points in the first 6:30 of the second half, missing all 10 of their shots from the field and committing a pair of turnovers during that stretch.
Even though the Lakers got out to a good start with a 33-point first quarter, coach JJ Redick seemed to use the team’s cross-country flight as a reason for their underwhelming showing.
“You never know what to chalk these things up to, but I think [with] the start of an East Coast trip, [there was] some brain fog execution wise for us,” Redick told reporters. “It was a little out of character for us, and I think that contributed as well to that third quarter where just we would call a play, and we wouldn’t actually run the play. We would drop an ATO, we would not have the right defender in the right spot.
“It was just out of character, and that got us stagnated.”
The Lakers were coming off an overtime win over the Knicks on Thursday, a game in which James played 44 minutes. That could’ve contributed to the reason why the Lakers star left Saturday’s game early as well, suffering a groin strain in the fourth quarter.
James’s groin injury could cause him to miss multiple weeks, ESPN’s Dave McMenamin reported. If so, Los Angeles could be in jeopardy from losing its spot as the No. 3 seed in the Western Conference to potentially needing to go through the play-in tournament to make the postseason.
Redick said he was “obviously concerned” about the 40-year-old’s injury. James, however, doesn’t feel the same way.
“Not much concern,” James said. “Obviously, we go day to day, look at it each day, see if it gets better, and take the proper measurements to see what we need to do going forward.”
As for Doncic, Saturday’s game was his introduction to the Celtics-Lakers rivalry. But it wasn’t his first time playing Boston on a big stage, losing to the Celtics in the NBA Finals when he was with the Mavericks last season. Doncic admitted that loss “came to mind” ahead of Saturday’s matchup, but he didn’t think his new team was too far off from beating the Celtics.
“I think we missed a lot of good shots today,” Doncic told reporters.
Putting aside Saturday’s game, the Lakers have been stellar since the Doncic trade. They carried an eight-game winning streak ahead of the matchup against the Celtics. That seems to be a reason why James is bullish on the Lakers’ chances moving forward.
“We made an acquisition late in the season, and we’re still trying to build and we want to get full,” James said. “That’s the No. 1 objective for us, how we can get full and get all our guys together and see exactly what we look like. So we feel like we can compete vs. anybody.”
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