Global Courant 2023-05-13 10:04:11
With a great performance by LeBron James, who remains more current than ever at 38 years of age, the Los Angeles Lakers defeated the Golden State Warriors, current NBA champion, 122-101 with authority and sealed the Western Conference semifinal by a 4-2 aggregate. Nikola Jokic’s Denver Nuggets await them in the final.
King James got his first game with at least 30 points in the playoffs since 2020. He also added nine assists and nine rebounds in 43 minutes played. Also, they had a great night Anthony Davis, with 20 rebounds and 17 points, and Austin Reaves, who scored 23 points and gave 6 assists.
As for those led by Steve Kerr, Stephen Curry scored 32 points in 39 minutes on the parquet, although he was not as effective as always: he converted 11 of his 28 field goals.
Likewise, he suffered from the lack of support from his teammates, especially that of Klay Thompson, who had a game to forget with eight points in 38 minutes (1-7 in doubles and 2-12 in triples). Nor did Jordan Poole shine, who scored 7 points on 1 of 10 shooting.
Stephen Curry could not prevent the elimination of the Warriors against Los Angeles. (Santiago Mejia/San Francisco Chronicle via AP)
Apart from Curry, the only one who managed to break double digits in points on the Warriors was Donte DiVincenzo, who came on off the bench and played 26 minutes.
Denver, first ranked in the conference, and Los Angeles will meet in the West final. The Nuggets have never won a ring and have not even played in an NBA Finals, while the Lakers are, along with the Boston Celtics, the most successful team in history, with 17 titles each.
Nuggets and Lakers crossed paths in the West final in the 2020 ‘bubble’, in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic. It was a victory for LeBron’s team, which would later become champion.
The chronology of the triumph of the Lakers against the Warriors
If any Lakers fan had imagined what a dream start would be like, it looked an awful lot like tonight’s start.
Those in purple and gold unleashed an avalanche that left the Warriors paralyzed and, with a three-pointer from Reaves from the corner, they reached an impressive +17 with 4.40 left in the first quarter (27-10).
With Dennis Schroder as a novelty in the quintet instead of Jarred Vanderbilt, the Lakers, who remembered for moments the overwhelming team from the sixth game against the Memphis Grizzlies, flew with a gigantic Davis under the hoops (9 points and 10 rebounds in the first game alone). fourth), a very aggressive LeBron from the beginning (9 points) and a Russell adding constantly (7 points).
Frayed, flimsy on defense, and totally off the mark from 3-point range (appalling 3-of-14), the Warriors threatened an early catastrophe.
The entry of Donte DiVincenzo revived Golden State, which in any case clung to the usual: a Curry who, based on triples and juggler penetrations, led a 4-16 run. The Lakers thus closed the first quarter in good shape paradoxical: they had seemed much superior but the Warriors lurked at only 5 points (31-26).
After so much up and down, the second quarter entered stable ground with the Lakers leading with margins of around 5-10 points.
The Warriors didn’t let up but they were still weighed down by Thompson’s erratic version (8 points on 3-of-13 shooting in the first half) and by a Poole with a nightmare night (0 points with 4 fouls).
Nor were the Lakers a prodigy of virtues, especially their inability to find Davis in the paint.
But to the rescue, with 10 points in that period, Reaves appeared, first with an additional basket in Curry’s face and then with a spectacular three-pointer on the buzzer and from the middle of the field that raised the Los Angeles fans on the way to halftime (56-46).
Darvin Ham’s men, as in the beginning, came out of the locker room to bite, with their batteries charged and wanting to knock out the Warriors as soon as possible. Thus, LeBron led another furious discharge from the Lakers, who recovered +17 against some Warriors that gave a feeling of fatigue.
A great “alley-oop” from LeBron to Davis preceded a scuffle between Schroder and Draymond Green that, quite controversially, ended the German point guard on the street since he already had a technique from the first quarter.
But neither that nor a Curry who multiplied with 14 points stopped a Lakers led by an overwhelming LeBron (10 points) and who recovered Lonnie Walker, the unforeseen hero of this tie, with 8 points.
Trailing 91-77 at the start of the fourth quarter, the Angels put their foot down and never looked back.
In this way, the locals, with LeBron setting the pace, soon exceeded a 20-point difference and the Warriors, prolonging their agony for no reason, could not stop a historic day for the Lakers.
With information from EFE.
