Even in his 21st NBA season and at age 38, LeBron James is still a force to be reckoned with.
He led the Los Angeles Lakers to a 130-125 win over the Los Angeles Clippers in overtime on Wednesday with 35 points, 12 rebounds, seven assists and two blocked shots, and social media was in awe of his dominant outing.
And Lebron took that Sh$t personal!!! Gave that Clippers that work. Btw AD still doing AD type things and that’s having a hell of start to this young season!!! Carry the hell on…
— Kendrick Perkins (@KendrickPerkins) November 2, 2023
What LeBron is doing right now is just without precedent in sports history. Just impossible to still be this athletic, this productive & this good at this stage. Just impossible.
— nick wright (@getnickwright) November 2, 2023
LeBron James was just the best player on the floor in a basketball game featuring Kawhi/PG/Russ/AD in November of 2023 lol…
— Jason Timpf (@_JasonLT) November 2, 2023
What an insane basketball game.
— Harrison Faigen (@hmfaigen) November 2, 2023
Lakers/Clippers is about as good as a November NBA game gets. Nice Lakers win.
— Colin Cowherd (@ColinCowherd) November 2, 2023
That’s cute how the Lakers really thought they’d be restricting LeBron’s minutes this season 😂
— Jemele Hill (@jemelehill) November 2, 2023
The shit Bron is doing is ridiculous lol
— Jayson Tatum (@jaytatum0) November 2, 2023
The Lakers only had eight players on Wednesday. They needed every last one of them to beat the Clippers.
– LeBron was the GOAT.
– ADPOY owned the third quarter (and was great all night).
– D'Angelo Russell carried the offense for stretches of the 1st/3rd.
– Austin was the…— Sam Quinn (@SamQuinnCBS) November 2, 2023
LeBron carrying the Lakers pic.twitter.com/932nPAs1fS
— Gilbert Arenas (@GilsArenaShow) November 2, 2023
Wish I was on @FirstTake 2morrow. 🐐 mask would make it’s 1st of many appearances. #GoatJames #LakerNation #LakersWin #Lakers
— shannon sharpe (@ShannonSharpe) November 2, 2023
On a night the Lakers’ two superstars had to be special, they were absolutely dynamic! LeBron James led the team with 35 points and 12 rebounds, and Anthony Davis added 27 points and 10 rebounds.
— Earvin Magic Johnson (@MagicJohnson) November 2, 2023
The Lakers had gone more than three years without a victory versus the Clippers, and they started out this contest in the type of manner that suggested they were about to go down in a blowout loss. They trailed by as many as 19 points in the first half, and they weren’t able to mount much, if any, resistance defensively, as the Clippers were able to get just about whatever they wanted.
But that deficit started to diminish in the third quarter as the Lakers finally clicked defensively. Stops and defensive rebounds started coming in bunches, and they managed to take an 87-85 lead at the end of the fourth quarter. After the Lakers led by eight inside of two minutes left in the fourth quarter, the Clippers responded to force overtime, adding extra intrigue to this contest.
But James didn’t slow down in the extra period, and Austin Reaves perked up late on both ends of the floor to help ensure victory. Even though James was the man on the night, he still gave Reaves lots of love right after the game ended.
LeBron and AD mob Austin during his postgame interview 😂 pic.twitter.com/h3EM2opL7G
— Lakers Daily (@LakersDailyCom) November 2, 2023
In all, James shot 13-of-19 from the field and 4-of-8 on 3-pointers, and despite playing 42 minutes, he didn’t falter down the stretch from fatigue. His minutes and workload have been a storyline this season, but it is starting to look like the team will play him as many minutes as needed in crunch time in order to win.
In particular, the NBA’s all-time leading scorer has arguably played his best ball late in games to start the season, which is a very good sign for the Lakers. He may not win the MVP award this season, but on any given night, he can still be the best player on the court when he needs to be.
