Despite win, Los Angeles Lakers once again face a stretch without LeBron James
It looked shaky, but the Los Angeles Lakers earned their 12th win of the season Tuesday, bouncing back to defeat the Sacramento Kings 117-92 at the Golden 1 Center.
Normally, the group's spirited run to close out the game would've been the story of the day.
After falling behind 59-50 at the half and watching that deficit grow to double-digits early in the third, L.A. bum-rushed Sac-town with a 40-8 run to seize momentum.
The Lakers closed out the matchup by outscoring their opponent 65-26 in a dominant second half.
What made the spurt especially noteworthy was not who spearheaded it but who was absent during it.
LeBron James' name was missing from Frank Vogel's starting lineup card after news surfaced earlier in the day that he'd be forced to miss several games due to COVID-19 health and safety protocols.
The league's policy mandates that players who return positive tests must quarantine for at least 10 days after the result and take two additional tests that produce negative results before returning to the court.
In other words, James' timetable for return is unknown.
"You never know with this," Vogel said of James' status moving forward. "Hopefully this is something short-term. We’ll see.
"We’re further along with our cohesiveness now than we were when he first went out. This is one of those things that is out of our control. We’ve got a group of guys capable of winning [games], and that’s where our focus is."
Vogel's group did just that Tuesday, and despite giving him some unwanted scares in the first half, the Lakers proved capable of banding together as a resilient unit that can generate wins against fully-equipped foes.
For Skip Bayless, the team's come-from-behind win was among the most impressive things the Lakers have done this year.
"What really got me from a basketball perspective was the Kings had a 14-point lead, and the [Lakers] went on a 65-26 run," Bayless said Wednesday on "Undisputed."
"[The Lakers'] biggest win so far came at home over Cleveland, and it was by 13 with LeBron. All of sudden, guess who showed up? Would you believe that Anthony Davis looked like Anthony Davis? Is he not a top-10 player in the league? He and Westbrook should be the two best players on the floor, and they were the difference on the scoreboard. They carried the scoring load."
Bayless went on to give Dwight Howard his flowers for his invaluable impact on the game.
"He changed the game. He can still dominate on the defensive end and wreaks havoc everywhere he goes. He's a force. He should be in the starting lineup. DeAndre Jordan gave you 4:22, and he was 0-for-1 from the floor with two rebounds. He was a minus-4 with zero points. Dwight impacts the basketball game."
For Shannon Sharpe, the win was satisfying, but it didn't ease his long-term reservations about the group's ability to scrap together victories without James.
"This told me they can play defense when they want to," Sharpe said. "They were down by 13, and I'm like, ‘This is embarrassing.’ If this is the Golden State Warriors or the Phoenix Suns, and you’re without your best player, I can get that. But this is Sacramento. They had just lost by 30!
"[The Lakers] beat a bad team, and they came from behind to do it. This may be a positive sign, but I need them to string together five or six. Can we get 15 games with LeBron, A.D. and Russ together?"
Shannon Sharpe: 'I love what I saw from the Lakers vs. the Kings'
Inciting a winning streak will be that much more difficult without the Lakers' indisputable leader. And their numbers without James paint a clear-cut picture of how valuable he is to their efforts.
L.A. is 5-7 without James and 7-4 with him, and the Lakers have a plus-1 point differential in the games he's played. When he doesn't take the floor, that number plummets to minus-38.
The team also undergoes a stark drop in offensive rating (112.9 to 104.3), effective field-goal percentage (56% to 50.8%) and defensive rating (112.6 to 106.5) when James is not on the floor.
But the Lakers are determined to not let his absence deter them.
"[We've] still got to find ways to win –– we can't let that affect us," Davis said postgame. "Me and Russ as the head of the snake have to find ways to lead these guys until LeBron comes back."
Davis and Westbrook will be forced to represent the head of the snake for the immediate future.
But for now, the crown will be absent.
