LeBron James’ hidden message?! A ‘HUGE’ WIN in Lakers-land vs. Clippers | NBA on ESPN

LeBron James’ hidden message?! A ‘HUGE’ WIN in Lakers-land vs. Clippers | NBA on ESPN

Om young Muk here with Dave MC benan after yet another interesting intriguing exciting at times ugly at times Laker Clipper match up the Lakers needed this one badly three and 10 since the inseason tournament Championship coming into tonight four game losing streak hadn’t won in 2024 yet they barely gut it out

With Norm Palace buzzer beater riming in and out there’s a lot of stuff we got to talk about with the Lakers I I want to start though your reporting an impression of what happened with Kawhi lard down the stretch in this game yeah so kawhai came out with 247 left to go

In pretty much I think it was like a three-point game and very rare to see and he did not come back in until 17 seconds left in a pretty much I think onepoint game at that point um and so I was like what’s going on kawhai did

Struggle this is his first probably bad shooting game since late November I I think which is that’s how good he’s been right uh almost like six weeks but Tai explained afterwards that it was a minutes restriction thing he was at pretty much 35 minutes they are playing

The first of a back-to-back they play Phoenix on Monday so um they Tai had to bring him in early in the fourth quarter because that game was starting to get out of hand Lakers went up a 10 I believe so they brought Kawai back in to

Try to get them back in and then he used Too Many of kawai’s fourth quarter minutes weren’t weren’t able to get him back in until late so even though Lakers you know did build that 10o lead you mentioned in the fourth quarter they tried to give this thing away several

Times down the stretch you know a bad foul on torian Prince on Norm pal with two minutes and change left that gave Norm pal the chance the chance to tie the game at the free throw line but give the Lakers some credit uh certainly I think the impact of a guy like Christian

Wood um had nine points 10 rebounds two block shots really gave them some momentum in the third quarter at a a time when LeBron and AD who both had strong games but not necessarily in the third uh and then also down the stretch Toran Prince after that foul he makes a

Three to put the Lakers up three with a minute 17 to go he makes two free throws um with like 13 seconds left to go uh and there was various contributors Austin Reed made one late free throw Anthony Davis made several uh pick and pop jumpers in the fourth and LeBron had

One of those LeBron moments where he drives on the left side he got the zubot kind of crowds him and LeBron almost gets the ball stuck on his hip but somehow wills it up and into the basket and the Lakers get a chance to win but

There’s something I want to I don’t know if you heard this yet or or even had a chance to digest it with a Clipper side of things but there was a reporter who asked Lebron after the game what’s your view of the James Harden Clippers and

LeBron said who wait wait this isn’t the that’s not the James hard Garden Clippers it’s the T Clippers yeah and considering all the stuff that’s been floating around about the Lakers coach jvin ham and where things stand uh in terms of of his jobs securer with the Lakers these days was pretty interesting

To hear LeBron kind of go out of his way to endorse his former coach from the C well I a couple things I think maybe LeBron might have misunderstood the point is that this is the first time he’s faced the Clippers with Harden they played last time they played the

Clippers Harden was on the bench he didn’t play it was right after the trade PJ Tucker played so this was the first time he played the Clippers with James Harden but yes anytime he is complimenting another coach which he tends to do from time to time uh Lebron

Is as good as there is basketball IQ so he he enjoys and I think respects basketball IQ from other coaches it never hurts to read into things like that and I mean I think with LeBron a lot of times there’s always sometimes a hidden message within his message so um

I thought pregame was interesting with Darvin ham being asked do you feel by B by B Bill plashy do you feel like you are coaching for your job and is that fair and he said no I understand I work for a storyed franchise and that comes

The pressure comes with that job but no I don’t feel like I’m coaching for my you know coaching for my job basically um trying to win games he he he thinks that you know I think he just wants it the microscope to kind of stop game per

By game by game and Ty defended him before the game basically saying it’s not fair to judge him game by game look what he did last year I think he showed how good of a coach he is with what he did last year so tyo defended him and I

Think this game here takes a lot of heat off them even if it’s only temporarily even if it’s only 24 hours to get LeBron James in a better mood than what we saw the other night when he was asked about Ricky Rubio I think that means a huge

Deal in late land yeah and and listen they’ve had some challenges since the inseason tournament the schedule’s been unforgiving a ton of road games they played three road back to backs to close out 2023 they went one and five in those games uh and you talk about you know

Even tonight you got Danel Russell back for the first time in four games he missed three straight and then the end of a fourth in Minnesota because of a Bruce tailbone you still don’t have ruy hachimura in the lineup you still don’t have Gabe Vin in the lineup like those are

Pieces that they were intending to rely on but I do think one thing you have seen over this not just in the win against the Clippers but over the last stretch here T Darin H’s gone back to Christian Wood who had a big role early in the season and you know as I

Mentioned he was really good tonight and it’s really been two or three games now that that he’s had an impact and Max Christie is also getting consistent minutes perhaps that will be the mix now of course once r hore’s left uh calf is healed that’s another ingredient thrown

Into the mix and Darin ham will have to juggle that but right now at least it seems like these roles are settled into this starting lineup it appears like they’re going to go forward with and it was interesting to see the closing lineup where Jared Vanderbilt was again

Trusted to be in that role um he hadn’t been right most of the season because of a left heel btis issue he was dealing with from the start of training camp really um maybe maybe this can continue because they do have some more Road games coming up I mean home games coming

Up defensively the Lakers tonight I think look the way they need to look long disruptive making things uncomfortable for the Clippers Clippers took a lot of uncharacteristic Shots tonight um T kawhai credited the Lakers defense basically saying like they were able to kind of get me out of my spots

Um I have a theory so one thing that I thought as the Lakers were making that run to the inseason tournament Dave was I said I can tell what a LeBron wants this badly he wanted to win the inseason tournament because it was would be part

Of his legacy another thing that say he won first first guy to win it um but I thought he was expending almost playoff level energy at the end of November and whatever it was right so I thought it was way too early of how good he was and

Of course the rest of the team followed him and played well but then I thought he’s he how much of the tank did he empty here he’s going to have to recover and it’s too much and so I thought in the following games after the End season tournament Anthony Davis would have to

Basically take over that role and take control games take over games and everybody else would follow it and as good as Anthony Davis has been at times just hasn’t had that same impact away when LeBron takes over that the rest of the team doesn’t and I LeBron just can’t

Keep that up the entire season nor can he do it this early he has to save a lot of that for the playoffs tonight I think what you saw LeBron I love LeBron taking on kawh Leonard number one I thought he took the defensive assignment and he

Bothered kawhai okay I think it was he was just physical with him and he did it early in the game as opposed to late um LeBron had an allaround game 25 eight and seven but didn’t have to do it for the entire 40 minutes right like ad now

With eight minutes ago I I turned to Andrew gri from the LA Times next me and I said if I were to tell you with eight minutes to go in the game that he beat the zubats would outplay Anthony Davis and would you think the Clippers were up

10 but the Lakers were up 10 at that point so ad still had a good game a decent game but didn’t take over but the rest of the guys and AD said this tonight the role players this is what we saw last year you know even at Vando for

Example he’s not scoring a lot but defensively that was a a great game from him his activity level was up yeah and you know ad used the term the others you win a championship based on the contribute contributions of the others basically he saying I’m going assume

That myself and LeBron James are going to show up every night and listen that was the formula that they built this team with right and they won something with it the inseason tournament and the Hope was they could continue to win the big prize with this group now over the

Last month or so it’s caused everyone involved with the Lakers organization to question things and maybe this wasn’t the right formula especially if all these role players can’t stay healthy that’s why we heard so much about the potential trades out there could they go after Dante Murray could they go after

Zack LaVine etc etc etc you’ve you know you’ve read you’ve listened uh you’ve watched all of these things being discussed on shows and In Articles at ESPN and that heat is only going to get ramped up at the end of January early February when guess what both teams are

On their Grammy trip that’s right right and post January 15th uh I think they play again right in January 15th some of these contracts on both teams uh can be traded so we’ll do this again you know we’ll see I can’t believe we’ve covered two straight Laker WIS over the Clippers

We covered 12 Clipper wins I don’t know what’s happened things have switched around but I I will say this interestingly of us two this guy is the guy who picked the Clippers I did to go all the way right or to the finals to the finals to lose to Milwaukee to I

Didn’t I pick Boston Boston I Pi Boston Clippers yeah so and you know people didn’t think that that pick looked great early on and you kept saying Yeah you know just give it time give it time and uh Clippers have looked very good until tonight but I think tonight actually is

A learning moment for them and tyo that hey they were they had won five straight 14 of 16 uh Lakers made things tough for them and I think this was a moment where they can try to figure out when teams do this to us or we Face a long team like

This and they kind of take James Harden out of it a little bit and why what do we do perhaps PJ Tucker could have a roll in the next Laker Clipper again if you need to muck things up a little bit right I’d love to see PJ Tucker he has

Fallen out of the rotation uh and look Mason plumbley is waiting in the wings behind Ty so he eventually will get a chance and uh you know unfortunately for PJ tuer he’s just gonna have to stay ready yeah well we will stay ready as well uh om has a backtack Lakers

Suns excuse me Clippers Suns Clippers Sons ERS will get the Suns later on in the week they got the Raptors first and uh we’ll see how the Pacific Division and the battle for La continues to shake out for oh I’m Dave treat the game well and it’ll treat you well take Care

Dave McMenamin and Ohm Youngmisuk recap the Lakers’ 106-103 win over the Clippers. The duo talk Kawhi Leonard’s minutes restrictions, the “James Harden Clippers,” the closing lineup and Ohm’s theory.
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