Now in his 23rd season of professional basketball, LeBron James has displayed the ability to take over games, making clutch plays and big shots when his teams have needed them most.
He topped Kareen Abdul-Jabbar on the NBA’s all-time scoring list due to his massive accumulation of points over his superstar career. He’s had 14 games with 50 points or more, and in 2021, he torched the Charlotte Bobcats, now Hornets, for 61 points to achieve a career-high.
However, on Monday night, he achieved a rarely-seen first-half performance for the Los Angeles Lakers. The NBA legend shot 0-for-5 in the game’s opening half, giving his team zero points, also contributing six assists and four rebounds in his 18 minutes.
The Lakers entered the road game on a nine-game winning streak, but the Detroit Pistons had other plans. The Eastern Conference leaders defeated Los Angeles 113-110 behind 30 points from Daniss Jenkins.
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After the game, head coach JJ Redick reacted to LeBron going scoreless in the first half, bringing attention to his other stats for the team.
“I thought he played a really unselfish game. Ended up with 10 assists,” Redick said, adding, “We ran some plays for him. I thought he did a good job of not just trying to score, but make the right play like he always does, and he gets 10 assists.”
The Lakers’ head coach indicated they “missed him” a few times on some plays that might have resulted in him scoring, but generally was pleased with his “unselfish” performance.
Lebron woke up a bit in the second half, finishing 12 points on 4-of-10 field goal shooting and hitting all three free throw attempts. He flirted with another triple-double, recording 10 assists and nine rebounds.
Along with his remarks about LeBron, Redick mentioned the team was without another valuable playmaker, Marcus Smart, who was sidelined with an injury. He said he felt this Lakers squad “is a good basketball team,” but their winning streak “coincided with being healthy.”
He said that following the trade for Luke Kennard, having all nine guys healthy helped them perform extremely well as a basketball team.
The loss to the Pistons dropped Los Angeles’s record to 46-26 for the season, with the Lakers still sitting third in the Western Conference behind the surging San Antonio Spurs and Oklahoma City Thunder. Both those teams are already set with playoff spots, as the Lakers have a bit of work to do before clinching a spot.
The good news is they’re likely to get healthy again, and LeBron can go off on a vintage scoring performance when one least expects it. If not, there’s always Luka Doncic, who continues to lead the team in scoring most evenings.
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