‘Shock the world’: Lakers dump out reigning NBA champs Warriors as LeBron explodes
The Los Angeles Lakers ran defending champions Golden State out of the NBA playoffs in dominant style on Friday, beating the Warriors 122-101 to advance to the Western Conference finals.
LeBron James delivered a masterful 30-point performance as the Lakers won the semi-final series four games to two and booked a clash with Nikola Jokic and the top-seeded Denver Nuggets for a place in the NBA Finals.
James added nine rebounds and nine assists in a sensational performance.
“It’s going to be an incredible sequence,” James advised broadcaster ESPN. “They’ve been the number one seed in the West all season long. We give them a lot of respect.”
Teammate Anthony Davis mentioned: “We want to shock the world … Me and Bron want another one, now it’s time to go get it.”
“We know what we’re capable of as a team. Where we wanna go. We’ve think we’ve got enough firepower. We’ve got to go get it done.”
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In Los Angeles, the Lakers led wire-to-wire as they closed out the Warriors of their second try after dropping recreation 5 in San Francisco.
“Not many (members) of our team have been in close-out games,” James mentioned. “So after game five up in the Bay, I knew I had to come in with a lot of aggression but be very efficient and very strategic in how I played this game.”
Anthony Davis scored 17 factors and pulled down 20 rebounds for Los Angeles and Austin Reaves scored 23 factors — together with a half-court shot on the halftime buzzer that put the Lakers up 56-46 on the break.
Since clawing their method into the play-in match, the Lakers have received seven straight house video games.
Their victory marked the primary time that the present Warriors dynasty led by Stephen Curry and coached by Steve Kerr has misplaced a Western Conference playoff sequence.
The Warriors had reached the NBA Finals in six of the final eight seasons, successful 4 titles, lacking the post-season in 2020 and 2021.
Curry scored 32 factors however made simply 4 of his 10 three-point pictures. Sharpshooter Klay Thompson made simply two of his twelve three-point makes an attempt.
“(We) just tried to make it tough on them,” Davis mentioned of the Lakers’ defensive technique in opposition to the prolific Warriors offense. “They’re the defending champion, they’re not going to go away. Their ability to score the ball, shoot the ball is unreal, unmatched.
“We just wanted to keep the pressure up, the intensity up, and be the hardest-playing team for 48 minutes.”
