Even though the Lakers suffered their second-consecutive loss last night, there were a lot of exciting and positive moments throughout the matchup against the Hornets at the Crypto.com Arena. One of the most exciting ones came when LeBron James dunked over Mark Williams.
Let’s recall that the Hornets center had been traded to Los Angeles before the deadline, but the deal was later rescinded because the big man reportedly didn’t pass the physical test. This Wednesday evening, the 40-year-old star sure proved that the Charlotte player can play stronger defense.
The powerful slam happened in the fourth quarter and seemed almost vengeful, but the all-time NBA leading scorer guaranteed that there was no extra motivation or hard feelings behind the play. “He was never a teammate. He never stepped into our locker room, and we never saw him,” LeBron said. “The trade went down, but we never met him. When it got rescinded, everything just went back to normal. It was no different.”
LEBRON JAMES WITH AN INSANE POSTER DUNK OVER MARK WILLIAMS 🤯pic.twitter.com/laG5zHRVF9
— ClutchPoints (@ClutchPoints) February 20, 2025
Once the game was over, coach JJ Redick assured that the Los Angeles team “competed” and even “played extremely hard,” but did admit that their overall execution was poor in last night’s 100-97 defeat to the Hornets.
“I don’t think it was just Austin (getting ejected). That certainly hurt us… overall I think we played 39-44 minutes of pretty poor offence,” he said. “Some of that is to be expected, some of it was sloppiness, some of it was poor execution, some of it was poor spacing.
The first-year NBA coach then added: “The reason I’m not going to read too much into it is because I think our guys competed tonight and played extremely hard. I thought our effort and competitive spirit was good enough to win. Just we were really poor offensively for 90 per cent of the game.”
Charlotte was led by Miles Bridges’ 29 points and five steals, while LaMelo Ball defined the game with 27 points to his name and clutch plays. “He [LaMelo Ball] did a great job of playing at the pace we wanted at the end of the game,” said his head coach Charles Lee.
“Understanding who we wanted to attack, getting our spacing in a better place, and I think the part that shows his leadership and growth is trusting the pass,” the tactician added. “There were some opportunities there where he could’ve tried to dribble through a double-team himself, but he ran whatever play we wanted to run and whatever the game gave him, he made the right play.”
