BOSTON — In seasons of battle, the Lakers’ journey to Boston produced the type of crowd noise that would match a smartwatch alarm. In seasons equivalent to this one, the place a June rematch isn’t laborious to fathom, the decibels solely go up.
However no quantity of noise, no quantity of custom, no quantity of environment might save the Lakers from a future that immediately turned unsure when LeBron James sustained a groin pressure throughout the Lakers’ 111-101 loss to Boston on Saturday evening.
Because the Lakers labored to come back again from a 22-point deficit within the fourth quarter, James signaled to the Lakers bench for a timeout, the 40-year-old star grabbing on the within his left leg. Because the Lakers’ huddled, James gingerly tried to stretch his groin muscle earlier than strolling throughout the courtroom to satisfy together with his coach, Mike Mancias. James grimaced, frustratingly put his arms on his hips and slowly walked again to the locker room.
James downplayed the severity, although he acknowledged he didn’t know for positive.
“Not much concern,” James mentioned. “Obviously, we go day to day, look at it each day, see if it gets better, and take the proper measurements to see what we need to do going forward.”
The harm got here because the Lakers scrambled again into the sport following a disastrous third quarter after they scored simply 4 factors within the first seven minutes.
“We were atrocious offensively,” Austin Reaves mentioned of that stretch.
James strained his groin with seven minutes left within the fourth, scoring after a string of spin strikes within the paint. He jogged on the courtroom and rapidly signaled for the timeout. He’s had a historical past with groin accidents since becoming a member of the Lakers, most importantly tearing the muscle on Christmas in 2019. He missed greater than a month after that harm.
“It’s not as bad as that,” James mentioned.
The Lakers had been capable of get inside 4 within the ultimate 5 minutes earlier than the Celtics hit the sport’s largest photographs.
Boston All-Stars Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown mixed for 71 factors, with Tatum scoring 40. After the sport, the Lakers and coach JJ Redick mentioned they had been happy with their defensive effort even with out Jaxson Hayes, who missed the sport with a knee contusion.
“Frankly, I thought we defended well tonight. Missing Jaxson and not being able to have him roam off of [Jrue] Holliday, I think, hurt a little bit with the room protection, but we forced them into a lot of off-the-dribble jumpers after the first quarter,” Redick mentioned. “We wanted to limit their threes. They shot 38 threes. They averaged 48. Tatum and Brown, for those guys, they played 42 minutes and 46 minutes and both took over 25 shots — like, we executed well defensively on a lot of things.”
And though Luka Doncic completed with 34 factors, he was late to have an affect, the Celtics’ protection swarming and forcing him into turnovers that led to straightforward Boston baskets. The Lakers turned the ball over 14 instances for 16 Celtics factors.
James completed with 22 factors, 14 rebounds and 9 assists.
The loss ended the Lakers’ eight-game profitable streak.
Whereas any response to the tip of that streak is mainly an overreaction, the loss towards Boston (46-18) did spotlight a number of the points the Lakers are nonetheless making an attempt to unravel as they transition right into a staff pushed principally by Doncic.
In his second sport again after injuring his calf, Austin Reaves’ vanished from the sport plan, not less than as a playmaker. He had solely two assists after ending with none within the Lakers’ win over the Knicks.
Reaves scored 16, however the Lakers, who had been with out Jaxson Hayes and Rui Hachimura due to minor knee accidents, couldn’t get one other participant into double figures.
“We can compete versus anyone in this league. So we’ll be fine,” James mentioned. “We got to continue to build our habits. We’re not where they are, the defending champion. And they’ve been playing basketball together for a long time. And they got a great chemistry and know what they want to do. We made an acquisition late in the season, and we’re still trying to build. And we want to get full.
“That’s the number one objective for us, how we can get full and get all our guys together and see exactly what we look like. So we feel like we can compete versus anybody.”
The Lakers play the Nets on Monday evening in Brooklyn.
“We’ve had many situations where a player deals with some type of injury or a trade or whatever it is, and we’ve done a really good job of bouncing back,” Reaves mentioned. “And I don’t expect anything else. Like I said, it’s a next-man-up mentality. Not one person’s gonna do what LeBron does for us. But you can do it as a collective. And… hopefully he gets back out on the court soon.”
