The frontal card battle between the Lakers and the Pelicans has just ended, and in the middle of the game, the Lakers led the Pelicans by 20 points at 69-49, and James scored his 30,072nd career point with a three-pointer from the left arc. As a result, James surpassed Abdul-Jabbar (40 years and 277 days) to become the youngest Mr. 37,000 in history at 37 years and 88 days.
Originally, this was a game that belonged to James's career record night, but helpless, in the end, the Pelicans relied on the strong play in the second half to finally rewrite the score to 116-108, giving the Lakers two consecutive losses.
After this game, the Pelicans have climbed one place up from the tenth position in the West, while the Lakers have changed from ninth in the West to tenth in the West. Moreover, between the Lakers and the Eleventh Spurs of the West, there is only a 1.0 win difference. In addition, the Spurs' psychological advantage of the latest wave of 3 consecutive wins will also help the Spurs' young people continue to impact the qualification of the play-offs.
What is more worrying is that the Lakers' remaining schedule difficulty this season ranks 3rd in the league, the Spurs' remaining game difficulty is 11th in the league, and the Pelicans' remaining game difficulty is only 24th in the league, which is nothing less than worse for the Lakers.
After this game, Vogel will surely become the object of torture by Lakers fans.
The 37-year-old James did his best throughout the game, playing 41 minutes and 37 seconds, with 39 points, 9 rebounds, 5 assists and 1 block, shooting 14 of 27 from the field, including 7 of 13 from three-point range and 4 of 6 from the free throws, but the remaining four starters only scored 30 points in total.
Among them, Westbrook had 18 points, 7 rebounds, 5 assists and 1 steal, Howard had 8 points and 10 rebounds, Gabriel had 4 points, 2 rebounds and 1 steal, and Reeves, as a shooting guard, did not score a single point in the 20 minutes of this game, with only 6 rebounds, 6 assists and 1 steal.
At the beginning of the season, the Lakers vowed to continue to work for the 18th championship trophy in team history, but in fact, they have now fallen to the point of worrying about qualifying for the playoffs.
In order to achieve the goal of winning the championship, the Lakers did not hesitate to win the high-valued Westbrook (salary of $44.21 million this season) and signed veterans such as Anthony, Howard and Ariza, but it turned out that Davis, who was constantly injured, did not return, relying only on James, a 37-year-old veteran, to play the residual heat, the team is not far away!
In a post-match interview, manager Vogel said of the outcome of the match: "This defeat was very painful for us, we are running out of time. We showed the right urgency for the game, but we didn't take it in. ”
Today, the Lakers have 8 games left, but the competitiveness and competitiveness they have shown has not helped them get more wins. Will James miss the playoffs for the fourth time?