After the Lakers began their season with two straight wins for the first time since 2010, LeBron James stood in front of his locker and said the key to their season would be looking, more often than not, for Anthony Davis to lead the way.
“It’s very important that he’s the main focal point for us every single night,” James said defiantly Friday. “We know what he’s going to do defensively, but offensively we have to find him in multiple places on the floor throughout the whole game. And we’ve done that through two games.”
So about Game 3 …
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With the Lakers having coughed up a 15-point lead and the Sacramento Kings doing what they always seem to do to their rivals, James reminded everyone that he too can be a focal point.
In four minutes of almost perfect basketball from the Lakers’ 39-year-old star, he scored 14 points and assisted on another two. The stretch, which came during a 21-0 run to start the fourth quarter, pushed the Lakers to yet another win, 131-127 over the Kings.
“To just get that performance to start the fourth from LeBron, what can you say?” Lakers coach JJ Redick said. “We’ve all been very fortunate to watch his greatness for so long and the fact that he’s able to keep doing it, it’s just, it’s actually insane. It’s actually insane.”
James finished with 32 points, 14 rebounds and 10 assists, his play early in the fourth quarter putting the Lakers in position to beat the Kings for the first time since Jan. 7, 2023.
“I caught a rhythm, had my outside shot going, got a couple ones in the paint as well,” James said. “Got a backdoor from [D’Angelo Russell] that worked well. So just trying to see what I had going to help us get us over the hump on this back-to-back.”
And the other focal point, Davis, closed the game out.
With Sacramento pushing back against the James-led run, Davis reentered the game and continued his early-season dominance. He attacked Domantas Sabonis at the rim and iced the game with a three-pointer and a split trip to the free-throw line, his only miss in the fourth quarter of a 31-point night.
Davis and James combined to make all 11 of their fourth-quarter shots, combining to score 30 points in the quarter.
“Just when you think he’s slowing down, man, he continues to show the world why he’s the greatest,” Davis said of James. “To go on that stretch, he actually looked to the bench and was trying to come out the game. We told him, ‘You’re not coming out.’ He comes out and hits another three. He never ceases to amazes any of us because we just know what he’s capable of, and what he’s able to do.”
All five starters finished in double figures with Rui Hachimura scoring 18 to go with nine rebounds, Austin Reaves adding 16 points, seven rebounds and six assists, and D’Angelo Russell contributing 16 points and five assists.
Before the game, Redick acknowledged that early-season sample sizes haven’t come close to reaching meaningful levels. Still, he’d been encouraged by the Lakers’ low turnover rates.
Then the Lakers coughed it up 19 times leading to 25 Sacramento points.
But like they did in wins against Western Conference contenders Minnesota and Phoenix, the Lakers found other ways to tip things to their advantage.
Read more: Anthony Davis dominates opener as Lakers’ offense runs through him
They grabbed 13 more rebounds than the Kings and ended up with four more shots despite turning it over five more times than Sacramento. And while Sabonis had a triple-double with 29 points, 12 rebounds and 10 assists, and De’Aaron Fox had 28 and 10 assists, James and the Lakers’ stars were just better.
“In general, when you operate out of gratitude you sometimes have a feeling of surrealness. And I’ve certainly had that many times in many days as the head coach of the Lakers,” Redick said. “And tonight was a surreal moment to watch him [and] coach him.”
The Lakers now head on a five-game trip beginning Monday in Phoenix with stops in Cleveland, Toronto, Detroit and Memphis before returning to Los Angeles.
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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.