LeBron James has been carrying the Los Angeles Lakers for large parts of this season, the King has been imperious as he continues to challenge for the NBA’s scoring title with big performance after big performance. However, the Lakers are still just the 7th seed in the Western Conference and their loss to the Memphis Grizzlies on Sunday night showed exactly why.
James had an amazing 35 points to go along with 9 rebounds and 7 assists, doing so on unreal 73.7/75/100 shooting splits. He had his way with the Grizzlies, getting whatever shots he wanted but still ended having an unfathomable plus-minus score of -30.
This was thanks to the other Lakers starters, who were extremely poor on the night, with all 4 of them combining to somehow score 13 points less than LeBron in the game. Avery Bradley and Malik Monk both managed just 7 points each, with Russell Westbrook adding an abysmal 6 and recent addition Stanley Johnson managing to get 2 for a total of 22.
This, combined with some atrocious defense, allowed the Grizzlies to pull away in the second and third quarters, outscoring the Lakers by 24 points over a 24-minute stretch. The Lakers never recovered despite a valiant effort by some bench players like Austin Reaves and Wayne Ellington who managed to make the final score 127-119, despite the game having been a blowout for the most part.
In the absence of Anthony Davis, the Lakers have been almost entirely dependent on James to provide them with any semblance of offense, and LeBron has obliged by putting up more than 30 points in 9 out of the last 10 games.
However, even with King James defying age to put up an MVP-caliber season, there is only so much he can do without proper contributions from his supporting cast. The Lakers need to bounce back as fast as they can and the next opportunity will present itself when they face the Sacramento Kings on Wednesday.
