Los Angeles Lakers superstar LeBron James put forth an outstanding effort on Wednesday night against the Sacramento Kings. James finished with 28 points, 10 rebounds and 12 assists as he notched his 108th career triple-double, passing Jason Kidd for fifth on the all-time list.
Unfortunately, this effort came in a loss as the Lakers dropped their first home game of the season to Sacramento, and a main reason was turnovers. The Lakers turned the ball over 23 times and it was LeBron who was the main culprit with six on the night and he knows that really cost them this game.
“It’s a lot. That had an effect on the game, definitely the turnovers,” Jamessaid after the loss. “They did a good job of being in the passing lane and we turned the ball over way too many times and allowed them to score off our turnovers. A couple times they broke our runs when we had good defensive stops or whatever the case may be and they were able to read some of our passes.”
Turnovers are always the great equalizer and that was certainly the case on this night. The Lakers actually shot a better percentage from the field and the 3-point line, but Sacramento took 13 more shots than the Lakers overall due mainly to turnovers as well as offensive rebounds.
The Lakers did make a late push, cutting a 26-point fourth quarter deficit to single-digits late, but LeBron isn’t taking much away from that. “We were down too many times throughout the game, pretty much the game kicked around pretty much. They played exceptionally well,” James added.
“You could tell they came in with a lot of fresh legs and they looked like us from the beginning, like we was in three in four nights. But I don’t take nothing from that fourth quarter push.”
The Lakers won’t have much time to focus on the loss either as they will be right back on the court Friday night. LeBron believes the team will watch a little film, but with so many games upcoming, it’s best if the Lakers take what they can from this game and move on.
“I think we’ll watch a little bit if not tomorrow or on Friday I think when we have our shootaround or meeting. But like you said, we have too many games that’s coming up on top of us very soon and they’re going to be flying. This is three in four nights. We play Friday. We play Sunday. We got a lot of games coming. You learn from some of the mistakes. You learn from some of the good things you did. But then you move on.”
The Lakers are still figuring some things about, but as James said, they have a lot of big games coming up so focusing too much on one loss is just not ideal.
LeBron James discusses Lakers’ 3-point shooting
While the Lakers obviously didn’t match their unbelievable 3-point shooting night the previous game, they did again shoot a solid 37.9% against the Kings. After that night against the Grizzlies, LeBron made it clear that he felt the Lakers were already getting good looks.
“I thought we had great looks in the first 10 games,” James said after the win vs. Memphis. “But we’re off to a good start for the next 10 already.”
The Lakers are creating great opportunities for themselves and even though it wasn’t at that level against the Kings, it is clear that the team is starting to knock those open looks down at a higher rate which greatly improves the team overall.
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