Lake Buena Vista, Fla. – LeBron James woke up on Tuesday from his bias and included two words written in a Los Angeles Lakers group chat in which he said everything: must win.
“We see the message from our leader,” Anthony Davis said after the Lakers’ 102-96 Game 4 win over the Miami Heat to a 3-1 lead in the NBA Finals. “And he just left it.”
James’ fourth, tied to the Boston Celtics for the longest time – spread across three different franchises – the result is far from a single LA win from the championship.
James led the Lakers with 28 points, 12 rebounds and 8 assists to secure the game and surpassed six turnovers – five of which were committed halfway through to secure the game.
“I felt for myself, personally, that this was one of the biggest games of my career,” said James, 35, the league’s all-time leader who won the playoffs. “I just wanted to relay that message to my teammates, what field I was in, the type of moment and the type of team we were playing against ….
“They’re just a brave team, so they’re a very well-trained team. I think if we’re going to be a championship club, if we really want to be a championship team, we’ve got to be just as tough and the same. There was a mindset. I’m still in it. “
James exemplified this approach by playing throughout the fourth quarter and approaching by 11 points (7-for-7 shooting from the foul line), 5 rebounds and 2 assists in the final frame, it was Davis’ defensive work on Jimmy Butler that pulled him to victory in the first place. Game Making.
A 40-point triple-double comeback, in which he scored 14-20-shots in Game 3 wins, Butler remained warm to start Game 4, scoring 11 points on 5-for-5 shooting in the first quarter. ESPN According to statistical and data research, Butler scored just 11 points in the final three quarters with a 3-of-12 in the final three quarters, while Davis was defending him.
“We wanted to give it a different look, honestly,” Davis said, finishing with 22 points, 9 rebounds, 4 assists and 4 blocks and helping LA outscore Miami on that floor for 17 minutes in 42 minutes. “We were asking a lot of Bron. I just told Bron, ‘I’ll take him.’
James – who dubbed Davis the defensive player of the year all season, in the same way Davis endorsed James for MVP, only the pair are second for both respective awards – was praised by the big man.
“That guy can do everything defensively,” James said. “Making the ball a guard, defending the post, sliding his legs from the guards, competing, can get bigger. I mean, I need to say more?”
LA led five-points in the fourth quarter, beating Davis 3 by nine points with 39.5 seconds left before winning six. The Lakers extended their record to 56-0 this season while topping Leeds as the best team to secure the lead at the end of league history after three quarters. Michael Jordan’s 1995-96 Chicago Bulls, who took a fourth lead from 78-1 (.987), are second.
“I think the fourth quarter, obviously it’s time to win,” James said. “You’ve got 12 minutes to come down defensively with Sisu, grab that lead, and then you have to run aggressively. Naturally, I didn’t know the state tonight. But for us it’s just a mindset.” “If we win the quarter, we win the game.”
And if the Lakers win Game 5 on Friday (9 a.m. ET, ABC), they will win the title. Looks like James will have to draw a lot between now and then.
“At this stage of the season, I don’t care about rest. I don’t really. I don’t care about sleep deprivation,” James said. “I don’t have to worry about resting because if I have to go there, I can rest in a week. I can rest for a month, because of who I am, I won’t, you know.
“But I can rest then. I can sleep for eight hours and get up and eat, and then go to sleep if I want to.”
.
