LeBron congratulates Rob Pelinka on promotion to vice president of basketball operations for the Los Angeles Lakers.
Rob Pelinka helped pair LeBron James with Anthony Davis this season for the Los Angeles Lakers. That alone makes the Lakers a championship contender. He also seems to have filled out the roster with high-upside players like Dwight Howard and Alex Caruso, while also finding solid starters like Danny Green to surround his two superstars.
For that effort, Pelinka was promoted to vice president of basketball operations for the Los Angeles Lakers this weekend. Upon news of the promotion, LeBron was quick to cosign the deal with a congratulatory message on Twitter. While quote tweeting an update from SLAM, James offered the following.
The Lakers own the best record in the Western Conference heading into their matchup with the Oklahoma City Thunder on Saturday. At 31-7, they are 4.5 games up on Nikola Jokic and the Denver Nuggets. They are also 4.5 games up on Kawhi Leonard and the Los Angeles Clippers. The only team with a better record than the one Pelinka helped construct is the Milwaukee Bucks who currently lead the Eastern Conference and NBA at 34-6.
The combination of Kawhi Leonard and Lou Williams ruined the Warriors chance or a major upset in Los Angeles with fourth quarter comeback for the Clippers.
Outside of their tight loss against the Milwaukee Bucks, the Warriors haven’t played up to their opponents since the 2020 new year began. Things weren’t getting any easier for them with a game against Kawhi Leonard and the Los Angeles Clippers looming on the schedule.
However, the Warriors battled the Clippers for 36 minutes, even leading by 10 heading into the fourth quarter. Unfortunately for the Warriors, Leonard and Lou Williams decided to show up in the final period.
Leonard gave the Warriors a replay of their 2019 NBA Final loss with his performance late in the game. The 2019 Finals Most Valuable Player had multiple defensive wizard-like plays, paired with a mix of powerful dunks down the lane.
The game was close with 2:30 left in the fourth quarter, yet a pair of possessions hurt the Warriors’ chances of an upset in Los Angeles. The Clippers defense forced Omari Spellman to launch a desperation three-pointer, on the other end of the court, Williams nailed a deep three to give Los Angeles a five-point lead down the stretch.
Without D’Angelo Russell, the Warriors couldn’t answer the play of Leonard and Williams in the final quarter, losing the game 109-100. In the fourth quarter alone, the Clippers outscored the Warriors 36-17.
Leonard finished the night with 36 points, nine rebounds, and five assists, extending the Warriors losings streak to seven games.
Final 📊
Omari – 17p/5r/3a/3s Glenn – 17p/4a/3r/2s Alec – 16p/8r/5a Eric – 12p/5r/1a Damion – 10p/6r/5a/1s Draymond – 8p/6r/4a/1s Jacob – 7p/3r/1s Jordan – 5p/2a Willie – 4p/7r/1a Ky – 2p/3a/1r/1s Alen – 2p/2r pic.twitter.com/z9MONiXl6V
Second-year big man, Spellman has been one of the best members of the Golden State Warriors since the new year began. Without Kevon Looney, and Marquese Chriss getting waived, the Villanova product has received a more significant role in Steve Kerr’s rotation.
Tonight he took his most critical step as a Golden State Warrior, starting his first game and he did not disappoint, Spellman scored 17 points on 6-of-12 shooting from the field, including 4-of-8 beyond the arc.
With his impressive first start, Spellman has now registered five-straight games with double-digit scoring numbers.
After hitting 13 three-pointers against the Milwaukee Bucks, the Golden State Warriors struggled from three against the Los Angeles Clippers. Even with both Klay Thompson and Stephen Curry on the bench, the rest of the Warriors roster couldn’t channel their inner “splash brother.”
The Warriors shot a miserable 8-of-39 from long distance, with Spellman hitting four of the eight. Without Russell, and playing against one of the best rosters in the NBA, Golden State didn’t do itself any favors going cold from beyond the arc.
Anthony Davis discusses why his pick-and-roll with LeBron James has been so effective so quickly this season with the Lakers.
LeBron James and Anthony Davis have been very effective together in pick-and-roll action this season for the Los Angeles Lakers. While James has run pick-and-roll with All-Star bigs like Chris Bosh and Kevin Love in the past, he’s never had a teammate on the receiving end who is as dominant or versatile as Davis is right now.
A.D. totaled 46 points and 13 rebounds against his former team on Friday and is helping LeBron continue to lead the NBA in assists. Following the Lakers latest victory over the New Orleans Pelicans, Davis discussed why that pick-and-roll with James has been so successful this year.
“The two-man game pick-and-roll is tough to guard,” Anthony Davis said. “When you have a guy like LeBron going downhill at the big, and then me rolling to the basket. You kind of have to pick your poison.
“He does a great job of reading it, when to pass it and when to go finish. It’s been effective. We’re constantly learning each other, trying to get better and finding ways to score besides the pick-and-roll. But it’s been effective for us.”
🎥 AD talks about his 46 point performance, facing his former team, and how he continues to build cohesion with LeBron James pic.twitter.com/nXjPAJtR9g
Next up for LeBron, A.D. and the Lakers is a matchup at Staples Center with Derrick Rose, Andre Drummond and the Detroit Pistons. Tip-off on Sunday is scheduled for 10 p.m. ET.
The Lakers look unstoppable when LeBron James and AD are on the floor, but when either sits, they look very beatable. The Nuggets proved that.
The Los Angeles Lakers lost their third straight on Sunday night, falling to the Nuggets 128 – 104.
With LeBron James out, Anthony Davis went off for 32 points, 11 points, and four blocks, but it wasn’t enough as Denver cruised to an easy victory. The Nuggets got scoring from just about everyone, with six players contributing with double-digit points.
This is the big question for the Lakers right now, and one that needs to be answered: How can this team win games when one of their stars is out?
What’s interesting about this Lakers team is that L.A. also doesn’t have much (or any) success when LeBron James is out (understandable), but they also can’t seem to perform when Davis is out, too.
I wrote about it last week after the Pacers beat an AD-less Lakers team — without Davis on the floor to space things on offense and defend the rim on defense, the Lakers have to go to Dwight Howard, who can’t space anything.
With Howard clogging the paint, LeBron has no room to work, and the entire Lakers offense comes sputtering to a halt.
When James is out, the Lakers have different problems. Now, their brain is gone. The team goes from having a genius Swiss Army Knife running the offense to Rajon Rondo and AD running a pick-and-roll without enough good shooters around them.
Rondo can’t shoot, so defenders can go under on the pick, and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope and Avery Bradley aren’t good enough shooters to keep defenders honest, so teams can double AD.
Davis is still so good he’s going to get his points, even doubled, but the rest of the team? Yikes. You could watch as Frank Vogel threw just about everything at the Nuggets, trying to find something that would work.
Alex Caruso played 22 minutes. Kyle Kuzma got 22. Quinn Cook had 17 minutes. Dwight Howard split time with JaVale McGee. Troy Daniels got 10 minutes. Nothing seemed to work.
What’s more concerning for the Lakers is how bad they are defensively. The defensive talent is there, they just don’t have the intensity right now. AD was furious after the game. “With or without [LeBron], we suck defensively,” he said after the loss.
Playing Nikola Jokic is tough, but it’s not like the Nuggets came in with a surprising game plan. They got Jokic the ball in the high post, and players cut off him. The Lakers didn’t stay with the cutters. The Nuggets had a lot of easy buckets.
Lakers fans can chalk this all up and just say “well we’re good when our two stars are on the floor, who cares?” But championship teams have answers when lineups get wonky. Even in the playoffs, things happen. Guys get knocks. LeBron and AD are two strong guys, but they’re human.
If they really want to win a title, the Lakers need to figure out how to play when one of their stars is missing. When James and AD are on the floor, the Lakers are just about impossible to defend, and when locked in defensively, they can get stops when they need them.
But Frank Vogel isn’t going to have James and AD on the floor for 82 games, and he needs to figure out a way for his team to be competitive when one (or both) is missing if the Lakers want to find the success they expect this year.
LeBron James breaks out the purple and gold ‘Lake Show’ Nike LeBron 17 colorway in Atlanta for Los Angeles Lakers matchup with Hawks.
LeBron James’ high school teammate, Romeo Travis, posted a picture of LeBron and his Fab Five crew from St. Vincent-St. Mary following their alma mater’s ESPN matchup with Bronny James and Sierra Canyon on Saturday. In the photo that Travis shared on Twitter, LeBron was the only person not wearing his signature sneaker.
When it came time to tip-off against the Hawks in Atlanta on Sunday, however, King James was back on brand. LeBron took the floor against Trae Young and company wearing a purple and gold colorway of his recently released LeBron 17’s. The shoe is decorated in various shades of purple and features a gold tongue, gold laces and gold swoosh on the sole. It is also a near perfect match with the away uniforms that James and the Lakers were rocking in the ATL.
Through three quarters on the road against the Hawks, LeBron has totaled 26 points, 12 rebounds and six assists. Superstar teammate Anthony Davis has scored 21 points and collected nine boards while helping the Lakers build an 82-78 lead heading into the final period. Young has 23 points and seven assists for a Hawks team that continues to compete. Los Angeles had previously led by seven points at halftime.
Georgia football great and LA Rams superstar RB Todd Gurley is not a fan of his play being called “vintage Todd” by his QB Jared Goff.
The Los Angeles Rams have been doing what they should have done for the past year: feeding their all-pro running back.
Todd Gurley’s knee and his lack of playing time has been one of the most talked about head-scratchers since the Rams’ Super Bowl loss to the Patriots where Gurley was basically irrelevant.
This season, Gurley has been used, but significantly less than one would expect from a player of his caliber.
Until recently, that is. The past few weeks, head coach Sean McVay has been feeding his workhorse the rock and letting Gurley get after it. When healthy, there may not be anybody better at carrying the football than the Georgia great.
Last week, in a win over the Seattle Seahawks, Gurley scored a touchdown that featured an absolutely nasty stiff arm.
RT SportsCenter Todd Gurley with the VICIOUS stiff-arm 😤
When referencing Gurley’s recent level of play and when discussing the above stiff arm, Rams quarterback Jared Goff referred to the run as “vintage Todd.”
That did not sit well with Gurley.
“Sounds like I suck and then made a good play,” Gurley said when mentioning the “vintage” label. “Not my first time stiff-arming nobody. Just a regular stiff-arm.”
Also, since Gurley has seen decreased playing time, he has been nothing but cool about it in the media. He would often make remarks noting that it’s a team sport and that the best players play.
From this quote below, I sense he’s done with that.
He knows what he’s capable of and he knows the team benefits when he touches the ball 25 times a game.
“You don’t really have to explain too much,” Gurley said, via Bill Plaschke of the Los Angeles Times. “You see the results over the last couple of years, when you’re running the ball, stuff is going well, stuff is opening up, so it’s like, not too much really to explain.”
For McVay, if he wants any shot at making the playoffs this season, a goal they are close to accomplishing, he knows what needs to be done.
The San Francisco 49ers throttled the Green Bay Packers by a score of 37-8, while the Los Angeles Rams got destroyed by the Ravens 45-6.
This past week, the Seattle Seahawks defeated the Philadelphia Eagles to improve to 9-2, while the Arizona Cardinals (3-7-1) had their bye. The San Francisco 49ers (10-1) had a massive win over the Green Bay Packers (8-3) on “Sunday Night Football” to assert their dominance in the NFC, while the Rams (6-5) continued to flounder against the Ravens (9-2) in a gruesome blowout on Monday night.
The only negative aspect of Week 12 for the Seahawks was the 49ers’ victory and the fact that they keep standing in Seattle’s way of the NFC West crown. Here is a more specific look at how the Seahawks’ two active division rivals performed in Week 12.
In Week 11, the San Francisco 49ers completed their sweep of the Arizona Cardinals while the Los Angeles Rams edged out the Chicago Bears.
The Seattle Seahawks (8-2) had a well-deserved bye week, leaving their rivals to battle it out in Week 11. The San Francisco 49ers (9-1) and Arizona Cardinals (3-7-1) faced off against each other in Santa Clara and the Los Angeles Rams (6-4) played the Chicago Bears (4-6) on Sunday night. Both the 49ers and Rams came out victorious, and the Cardinals lost to San Francisco. Here is a more specific summary of how Seattle’s rivals in the NFC West performed in Week 11.
The Cardinals raced ahead 16-0 before San Francisco scored 17 unanswered points to take the lead. From there it was a back-and-forth battle until Jimmy Garoppolo threw the game-winning touchdown pass to running back Jeff Wilson with 31 seconds remaining in regulation. The 49ers scored a defensive touchdown on Arizona’s desperation lateral attempt on the final play of the game, making the final score 36-26 and completing a sweep of the Cardinals.
Garoppolo threw four touchdown passes for 424 yards and two interceptions, completing 75.6% of his passes along the way. Kyler Murray threw two TDs and no INTs for only 150 yards but also completed over 70% of his passes.
San Francisco will play the Green Bay Packers (8-2) in a highly anticipated contest on “Sunday Night Football.” Arizona hits its bye week and is all but out of the race for the division and the postseason.
Los Angeles Rams 17 – Chicago Bears 7
A defensive slugfest on Sunday night, the Rams edged out the Bears at home. Both quarterbacks struggled immensely for the most part and couldn’t get into a rhythm. Mitch Trubisky suffered a hip injury and was taken out of the game, leaving Chase Daniel to fill in for him.
The Rams defense outplayed that of the Bears, limiting their opponent to seven points. Defensive tackle Aaron Donald had two sacks and four quarterback hits, while Bears defensive end Khalil Mack did not even register a tackle. Los Angeles did enough on both sides of the ball to secure a win and keep its faint playoff hopes alive.
The Rams get an extra day off as they play the high-flying Ravens (8-2) – whose quarterback Lamar Jackson has taken the NFL by storm – next Monday night.
