CLEVELAND — Here the Lakers were, down double-digits early, their will already broken by just the slightest amount of pressure. Monday night, it was an offensive rebound that snapped their early momentum and sucked the life out of them.
It’s a scene that’s repeated itself in cities all over the NBA map — the Lakers folding after a blown call, a missed rotation, a bricked jumper or, in this case, a phantom box out.
The Cavaliers would go on to score 31 of the game’s next 42 points, the latest chapter in the Lakers’ ineptitude to stare down adversity being written in real time.
But LeBron James hates to lose. And he really really hates losing as an opponent in Cleveland.
It’s only happened once — March 29, 2011 — and thanks to a triple-double combined with yet another strong game from Russell Westbrook, it still hasn’t happened a second time.
Fighting back against the Cavaliers’ early pressure instead of wilting under it, the Lakers won 131-120.
James scored 38 points to go with 11 rebounds and 12 assists while Westbrook had 20 points and 11 assists, the Lakers ending a four-game road trip with a pair of wins and actual rhythm and momentum.
With fingers twirling at the sides of his head, indicating that he was going crazy, James making jumper after difficult jumper — satiating down the Cleveland bench and posing for the fans who still wear his Cavaliers jerseys.
It’s James’ 17th win against the Cavaliers in 18 tries.
The Lakers can head home, at minimum, with some comfortability in their current style of play, even if it’s not what a Frank Vogel coached team would normally look like.
Embracing lineups that favor offense, the Lakers have finally shown flashes of continuity — a trait that’s eluded them since the very first days of the season following their busy summer of roster reconstruction.
With Anthony Davis out and Kendrick Nunn still waiting to debut, the Lakers are without two key ingredients for the defensive lineups they thought they would have.
So, even though Vogel said it hasn’t been “fun,” they had to pivot.
“You have to put some of your own ego aside at times. And if an offensive lineup is what you feel is gonna win the most games, you have to put that aside and just go with it,” Vogel said before the game. “I’ve done that a lot this year. It hasn’t resulted in enough wins, and it’s been very disappointing some of the defensive performances we put out. But you have to make the pieces fit offensively for us to win. The goal is for us to perform well enough on both sides to score more points as a team. It’s not just to be a great defensive team.
“I’ve had to remove some of that, and that’s just part of this job. And we’re up for the challenge, we still have a lot of life left, and we’ve found plenty of ways of things that will not work. That doesn’t mean we’ve found what will work yet.”
They used their 33rd different starting lineup on Monday, playing Wenyen Gabriel, Dwight Howard and Austin Reaves with James and Westbrook. The group opened the game by scoring six straight before the Cavaliers stormed ahead by as many as 14.
Then reserve guard D.J. Augustin got hot and the Lakers kept fighting — as positive of a sign as any and one they’ve shown consistently over the last week.
And the Lakers stayed in the fight long enough for James to take over, both as a scorer and a playmaker, the team looking as comfortable as they have all season.
