In an extremely exciting game between some current superstars and some future superstars, LeBron James and the Lakers eventually prevailed, winning 118-109.
Here’s our recap of the great night, that had its struggles.
LeBron James leads the Lakers to victory in their first game against Zion Williamson
The Lakers and LeBron James had to fight fire with fire on Tuesday night, combating Zion Williamson’s superstar player with some superstar play from one of the greatest to ever do it, LeBron James (more on Zion later).
LeBron ended the game with 40 points (17-of-27 FGs), eight rebounds, and six assists, helping the Lakers on some big runs including one during the final few minutes of the fourth quarter. One other run stood out, as LeBron spent a minute or two going on an 11-0 run by himself nailing three-after-three.
LeBron has been a monster on the front and back end of the All-Star break. He might be getting into that type of mood as playoffs near.
Let’s hope.
Zion Williamson as good as advertised
Well, folks. Zion Williamson played the Lakers for the first time in his career tonight. You might think that Zion struggled a little against the Lakers’ lengthy bigs. I regret to inform you all that Zion did not struggle whatsoever.
He went bananas in the first half, carefully and meticulously overpowering basically every Laker on the court including Anthony Davis. He ended the first half with 17 points, and played a little “worse” in the second half ending the game with 29 points on 8-of-18 shooting (13-for-19 from the free-throw line). Either way, you can see he’s there, and he’ll just get better.
Some Lakers have some shooting woes
Although the Lakers scored 118 points, it really felt like they should have put some more on the board.
This was probably because of the many open threes that the Lakers missed from a few of their best three-point shooters. Kyle Kuzma missed all of his three attempts, as did Anthony Davis, while Avery Bradley missed all SEVEN of his three-point attempts. The entire team shot 29.5 percent for the night, as that’s just not going to cut it against some elite teams of the NBA.
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The Lakers will be back on the court Thursday, as they will be visiting the Golden State Warriors at 7:30 p.m. PST. See you then!
