The select Hollywood team appeared on the quarantine carpet carpet Thursday with a completely different look.
The Lakers were clad in fear, wrapped in urgency, draping in despair.
They wore it well.
Anthony Davis stormed. Kentavious Caldwell-Pope flung. JaVale McGee muscle. And LeBron James screamed, well how he wrote, marched and bent and cried in the empty stands of a central Florida gym.
“We are built differently, dawg,” he urged his teammates. “We are built differently.”
At least for one night they were, and level their fierce first-round series against the Portland Trail Blazers with a thunderous roundabout.
Two days after snoozing through a playoff opening for the Blazers, the top-seeded Lakers played their best game since March, finally jumping into the bubble with a 111-88 victory that pointed a finger at all critics of the first game like this.
You really want to bury us already?
“Dominate!” James wrote in the huddle before the game, and the Lakers followed that playbook to the exclamation point.
After making one run with one rebound in the fourth quarter of the opening embarrassment, Davis had 31 points and 11 rebounds in 29 overwhelming minutes.
“It was a must-win game for us, and we play it this way,” Davis said. “We played handball with a sense of despair and a sense of urgency.”
After missing all nine of his shots in the opener, Caldwell-Pope dropped a quarter of three-pointers and scored 16.
“I told him after Game 1 that he started the season this way, with a few tough nights, a bit of a shooting decline, and all he did was shoot 40% over the next four months, by staying confident. true to his work, ”said Caldwell-Pope Lakers coach Frank Vogel. ‘He’s a big part of what we’ve done. He lets the mind think harder than our opponent.
Then there were McGee and Dwight Howard and Davis and all the defenders of the Lakers penalties who combined to keep the top team with excellent to 58 points through three quarters. Damian Lillard and CJ McCollum, the Blazers’ twin gunners, combined to make two of 12 long-range shots.
“We play sluggishly, we compete at a very high level. The care factor on the defensive side of the ball is where it needs to be … to win in the playoffs,” Vogel said.
It was the first Lakers playoff victory in more than eight years. It was also a win that might have counted for four, as Lillard got a dislocated left index finger late in the third quarter and did not return. Without their leader at full power, even if the series is tied to one game per piece, the Blazers could be toast.
‘It’s just sore … a little swollen and uncomfortable. “I did not even want to see it,” Lillard said afterward.
Sounds nice. The Blazers have little chance unless Lillard joins them from Cocoa Beach. Yet, even if he recovers, they have zero chance if the Lakers follow them in the Everglades, as they did Thursday with nine steals that helped lead to Portland’s 17 turnovers.
“I thought the Lakers were much more aggressive,” Trailry coach Terry Stotts said, adding later, “We looked a little slow and did not have the same pop.”
Lillard put it in more basic terms, saying, “They just followed it harder than we did … we kicked our kicks off last night.”
When Caldwell-Pope essentially opened the game with successive three-pointers, the Trail Blazers knew they were in trouble. By the time Caldwell-Pope darkened after a deepening of Davis’ length to give the Lakers a 21-point lead in the third quarter, they knew it was over.
That was one of the moments when James stepped down from the courtroom and exclaimed how no one like her is built. If you think about it, he’s right.
This is a team that started the season strands in China. They held a midday tragedy with the helicopter crash that killed Kobe Bryant, daughter Gianna, and seven others. They went into the bubble without their best defender in the chosen Avery Bradley.
“I just know what kind of season we’ve had this year … it’s been three or four seasons in one,” James said. ‘I know what we are capable of. I know how we are built. … It’s about our mind-set. ”
That mindset is one of teamwork and tolerance, as illustrated by Thursday’s two stars.
After the opening, Caldwell-Pope could have easily benched, but Vogel publicly supported him, claiming he played a good game, and then ran him back. With everyone complaining that the Lakers do not have a third scoring option due to the inconsistencies in Kyle Kuzma’s game, Vogel has firmly created an atmosphere where everyone gets the power to be that supporting star.
“We were hoping Kuz would do that at the start of the season … he was struggling with an injury and adjusting to his new role … what we found was a blessing,” Vogel said. ‘We’re more of a team type of every other-night-than-a-third option. … That’s better than for me a third option. ”
Then there’s Davis, a newbie for big playoff moments who shot eight of 24 in the opener and immediately put more pressure on himself, saying, “I knew I had to get better.”
Instead of piling up, Lakers partner and mentor James lined him up, told him he was OK, calmed him down.
“I was really falling for myself after Game 1,” Davis said. “He let me have my moment … then he talked to me and said I was fine … he was there for me to encourage me and keep me straight.”
Then, on Thursday, James went back and let him stew.
“Well, he did not say a word to me today,” Davis said. “He kind of knew, he saw the look on my face.”
That expression manifested itself in Davis who scored 16 first-half points in the paint, more than in the entire opener.
“He was just aggressive, from the start of the game,” said James, who was so excited to see that he scored just 10 points. “He was not passive at all.”
The relationship between the stars will be a narrative as these playoffs continue. It will be framed with James as the Stoic teacher, Davis as the nervous student, and the Lakers’ success based on their connection.
“He’s been in my ear about everything, especially in the playoffs at the moment, he’s seen it all,” Davis said. “He was there just for me, supporting me, guiding me through this whole process.” ‘
After a brief shock, the enriching Lakers culture seems to be working again. Although did she really know that she would look so well dressed in scurvy? They may not want to put it in the drawer yet.
Plaschke told of Los Angeles.
