Lakers-Warriors: LeBron James looked old and hurt in Round 1; he’ll need a throwback series to beat the champs

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LeBron James will be remembered as the victor in his war of words with Dillon Brooks. It’d be hard for him not to be considering the way the series ended. The Los Angeles Lakers stomped the Memphis Grizzlies by 40 points in the Game 6 clincher on Friday night. Brooks had nearly as many fouls (20) as field goals (24) and he had half as many ejections (1) as wins (2). Brooks may be humiliated right now, but that doesn’t mean he was wrong. At least, not entirely.

He probably shouldn’t have poked the bear, and he certainly looks foolish after declaring his desire to play a Lakers team that just beat him, but Brooks challenged James to “come and give me 40.” The 38-year-old James didn’t need to, of course, but it’s not as though he came especially close, either. James topped out at 28 points against the Grizzlies, a fine total for a mortal, but hardly up to his own absurd standard. 

It was just the sixth time in his career that he has failed to reach 29 points in a playoff series. He’s played in 51 of them. The others were a combination of his worst defeats (the 2007 and 2011 Finals) and his biggest blowouts (two 2016 sweeps and a five-game 2013 win over Chicago in which Miami’s average margin of victory was over 18 points).

Dig a bit deeper and you could argue it was the worst playoff series James ever won. His average of 22.2 points per game was the third-lowest average of his playoff career, beating only the 2007 and 2011 Finals. He averaged only 5.1 assists per game against Memphis, his fewest in a playoff series since the 2014 Finals. He hadn’t won a playoff series shooting below 50% from the field since 2016, but did so against the Grizzlies. The Lakers posted a plus-14 net rating with James on the bench against Memphis. That was the highest figure on the team.

The raw numbers should regress to the mean. James averaged 11.4 potential assists per game against the Grizzlies, but his teammates just missed the shots he created. James shot 19.5% from 3-point range in those six games. Take him up to his career average of 34.5% and his…

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Source link : https://www.cbssports.com/nba/news/lakers-warriors-lebron-james-looked-old-and-hurt-in-round-1-hell-need-a-throwback-series-to-beat-the-champs/

Author : Sam Quinn

Publish date : 2023-05-02 20:39:45

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