When the Eastern and Western semifinals come to an end, the list of participants in the four championship battles has also emerged, namely the Lakers, Nuggets, Heat, Celtics, and the 22-23 NBA championship winner will be born, and the Warriors, Suns, Clippers, and Bucks that we are looking forward to have all been eliminated. That's the beauty of competitive sports, you can never guess who the championship will go to, the most favored Bucks suffered a black eight in the first round, and the Lakers with a poor record turned out to be the big winners.
As a result, Lakers fans began to clamor again after three years of silence, and the slogan of "Lakers championship" became the loudest declaration. They are very confident, after all, the Lakers do have such strength, defeating the Grizzlies and Warriors successively, which has proved that the new lineup with the "James" as the core is not bad, no longer a weak player at the mercy of the season, but a Western powerhouse that makes opponents fearful. We can expect that the 38-year-old James has a chance to win another championship, and the Purple and Gold have a chance to become the team with the most championships in NBA history.
How strong are the Lakers in the playoffs this season? The playoffs haven't lost at home yet, and looking at the G6 performance against the Warriors in the semifinals, the offense is unstoppable in wave after wave. Ranked first in the league with a defensive efficiency of 106.5, thanks to the interior combination of James and Davis, which made the ball-carrier's breakthrough struggle, just look at the ball-carrying offense of Curry and Poole. NBA legend Maddie said during his trip to China that the Lakers would beat the Nuggets 4-2 to become the team that reached the Finals.
The Lakers are not only strong in James and Davis, the performance of role players is also remarkable, and coach Hamm is also extremely bold. In the most crucial G5 battle, Hamm actually used Lonnie Walker in the fourth quarter, the fierce slash of 15 points in a single quarter to overturn the Warriors, proved his strength with actions and repaid the trust of the coach, and made Curry ridicule "I will never forgive him in my life." Similarly, Reeves, a young man with an annual salary of more than a million, turned into a technical stream, using various singles to make Curry's defense helpless.
So, how strong are the core superstars of the Lakers? Although Davis often suffered injuries in the regular season, he rose again in the playoffs this season and proved his identity as the most perfect center in the small-ball era with absolute strength: averaging 21.2 points, 14.1 rebounds, 2.7 assists, 1.4 steals and 3.3 blocks per game, shooting 53% from the field, and his average rebounds and blocks per game are the first in the league, and he is the first person in the Lakers to integrate attack and defense. Although the offensive efficiency is not as high as the peak, it is a superstar more suitable for the Lakers, in addition to the offense can affect the trend of the game, Davis also shows strong dominance on the defensive end.
And James? This season, he averaged 23.4 points, 10 rebounds, 5.3 assists and 1.3 blocks per game in the playoffs, shooting 49.1% from the field; Although his personal offensive efficiency is not as terrifying as it once was, it was the easiest playoff trip he has played since entering the league. Perhaps, in his long career, he also understood the limitations of the big package play, so he chose to trust his teammates and sacrifice some of the ball so that they could fully use their talents, and see how Lonnie Walker and Reeves were born.
Not only that, James also has a statistic that ranks first in history: when his team took a 3-1 lead in the series, he had an 18-game winning streak and had never been reversed by an opponent in such a situation, and he was the first superstar in NBA history to do so, which is the first in history. Such dominance is truly unprecedented, which shows how amazing his dominance on the field is, worthy of the title of the second goal king in history, and he really deserves such an honor and praise.