On Monday night, the Los Angeles Lakers were dealt their first defeat of the season in a rematch against the Phoenix Suns; they ended up losing, 109-105, with Kevin Durant and Devin Booker combining for 63 points on the night. But the Lakers, even though they were facing a near-insurmountable deficit (given the circumstances) with 6.4 seconds to go in the game, made it interesting with a gambit from the free-throw line courtesy of LeBron James.
The Suns decided to just send the Lakers to the charity stripe while up by three in the dying embers of the game instead of taking their chances with a potential game-tying attempt from three. With no timeouts remaining for the Lakers, they did not want to play the foul game. Instead, the instruction was for James to make the first free throw and miss the second to try and get a second crack at a basket. And James did give the Lakers a chance when he threw the ball straight towards the bottom of the front rim, causing it to ricochet low.
“It was an insane miss, to be honest with you. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen an intentional miss that hit the bottom of the rim and went straight down,” Redick said in his postgame presser, via @ohnohedidnt24 on X (formerly Twitter).
JJ on LeBron's intentional missed FT:
"We communicated that. It was an insane miss" https://t.co/gxBlLNOweV pic.twitter.com/aTm5QdTzDg
— Oh No He Didn't (@ohnohedidnt24) October 29, 2024
Alas, this gambit did not work; Jusuf Nurkic was the first to get his hands on the ball, with Royce O’Neale promptly cleaning up the rebound and sending the ball out to Bradley Beal to seal the win for the Suns. Nevertheless, Lakers head coach JJ Redick gave James plenty of credit for executing their plan to perfection even though it did not bear the result they wanted.
While they will be kicking themselves for letting a very winnable game slip away, even the best teams cannot win all of their 82 regular-season games. The Lakers can still be very proud of the way they’ve played through their first four games, although there is some slight concern surrounding James following his substandard performance on Monday night.
Is LeBron James finally showing signs of age?
LeBron James has been so good for so long that Monday night was such a sobering reminder of his basketball mortality. It wasn’t as if the Suns’ defense on James was more locked in on him than usual. James was simply lacking burst on his drives and the Suns walled him off on multiple occasions, preventing him from getting into any sort of rhythm on the night.
In the fourth quarter, James’ double-digit scoring streak was in grave danger. He only had seven points on 2-13 shooting with less than two minutes to go in the game, and the Lakers star managed to save his streak it by drilling a three-pointer to cut the Suns’ lead to one. But overall, his performance, relative to his standards, was not too brilliant, as he finished with just 11 points on 21/40/50 splits on the night. Perhaps this is the year that James slows down to an obvious degree.
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