On December 8, James used a feat of 12 shooting and 30 points in 23 minutes to lead the Lakers to a 44-point victory to eliminate the Pelicans and advance to the midseason tournament finals against the Pacers. Such a fierce James has also been praised by famous names such as Magic, Barkley and O'Neal.
Although the midseason tournament is a regular season record, the level and glory are obviously different, especially in the knockout stage, so James played a playoff performance against the Suns and Pelicans. James, who got serious, couldn't even bear Durant and Booker, and Zion was also locked up.
James played in the quarterfinals between the Lakers vs. Suns and the Lakers vs. Pelicans in the semifinals, while ensuring offense, he also had a different way of defending. Against the Suns, James had five steals, which allowed him to activate multiple milestones in one game. James' defense in this game was not reflected in steals, but it was more direct, he locked up the contemporary O'Neal Zion, and also used the help defense to keep the Pelicans' other players out of space at all. James also contributed three offensive fouls, two of which went to Zion.
James was also questioned after the game about the fact that he was the oldest player who started to make offensive fouls frequently before the halfway point of the regular season, and he joked that he was in it for the $500,000 championship bonus, otherwise he would not have made offensive fouls. James was also asked what he learned in the mid-season tournamentObviously he didn't need to learn anything, so James replied: fancy floors don't affect the Lakers. For the strong team and the strong, these environments are really not very distracting.