Thanks to 30 points from LeBron James and 25 points and 23 rebounds form Anthony Davis, the Los Angeles Lakers were able to stave off elimination and end their 11-game losing streak to the Denver Nuggets with a 119-108 victory in Game 4.
It was obviously a huge win for the Lakers, who avoided getting swept by the Nuggets for a second consecutive season and forced the series back to Denver. Of course the pressure has gone nowhere as the Lakers are still in a win-or-go home situation and James understands that as well.
“The only opportunity for us is just to play the next game,” LeBron said after the Lakers victory. “And we’ve given ourselves another life. We’ve given ourselves another lifeline and it’s a one-game series for us. Monday’s game is the most important game of the season for us and we understand that and we know that so it’s that stake where you lose, you’re done or you win and you keep going. So, it’s not much to talk about.”
The Lakers are looking to make history and become the first team in NBA history to ever come back from a 3-0 series deficit. But LeBron understands that they can’t look at it like that, and must instead approach each game as its own individual contest.
There would also seem to be some sort of mental block lifted from the Lakers after finally defeating the Nuggets, who have owned them over the past couple of seasons, but James isn’t focused on that.
“I don’t know. We won this game and that was most important,” LeBron added. “Now we got to start focusing on the next one. If we lose the next one then it will be 12-1 in the last 13 games so we want to try to make that not happen. We want to continue to try to play good basketball and focus on our next task and our next task is like I said, Monday’s game and see what happens.”
All the Lakers can do now is get ready for Game 5 where they face that same pressure of their season ending if they can’t come away with a win. But with LeBron and Davis performing at the level they have been, the Lakers still have a chance against anybody.
LeBron James happy with Lakers’ sustained effort in second half of Game 4
A huge reason the Lakers were able to get the win in Game 4 was that they weren’t dominated in the third quarter as has been the case throughout this series. They were able to maintain their first half effort coming out of the locker room and that stood out to LeBron James as well.
“Obviously like we’ve been talking about, we have to sustain our effort, we have to sustain our energy and I thought the third quarter was very important,” James said. “We’ve had a lead in a lot of these games and then the second half, they’ve jumped on us and even though they outscored us by two, we’ve scored with them to keep the lead at 11.
“We were up 13 at half, they outscored us by two in the third but we were able to put up 30 so that definitely helped us going into the fourth and then the fourth for me is just my mindset to close it out. Make winning plays and I was able to make a few.”
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