The Lakers played the Pelicans in the NBA Midseason Championship on December 8. In the first quarter, the Lakers trailed the Pelicans by one point, but they were already in control of the situation with a 13-point lead at halftime.
By the end of the third quarter, the Lakers' lead had extended to 39 points, and the game entered the final quarter into "garbage time" early, with both teams fielding full bench lineups.
At the beginning of the game, the Lakers played a 10-3 offensive momentum, but with LeBron going off, the Lakers' strength declined to a certain extent, and Russell and Reaves made mistakes one after another, giving the Pelicans multiple opportunities to counterattack. In addition, the Lakers didn't do well in protecting rebounds in the backcourt, with Jones, Zion, and Varland all grabbing offensive rebounds and scoring.
In the first quarter of the game, James only made one shot but failed to score. Entering the second quarter, LeBron hit three three-pointers in a row in just 61 seconds (11:19-10:18) to help the Lakers stop the Pelicans, and continued to score 11 consecutive points, extending the Lakers' lead to 11 points.
However, after LeBron went off the two-minute break, the Pelicans narrowed the gap to two points. Then, James returned to the court, scoring seven straight points and dishing out two assists in the final 3:08 to open up the gap again. James scored 18 points, 2 rebounds and 2 assists in a single quarter, drawing shouts from MVPs.
At halftime, the Lakers** released James' stats: 9 appearances, 7 shots, 3-of-3 three-pointers, 21 points, 4 rebounds and 2 assists, and also posted a picture of the goat (greatest of all time), praising him as the best player of all time.
NBA reporter Tom Habströ had this to say about LeBron James: "LeBron has always been excellent, and he has completed four Hall of Fame-level careers. By halftime, James had become the number one hot topic in the United States, and as the oldest player in the league, his performance was incredible.
At the start of the third quarter, James scored back-to-back points at the top of the arc, then countered and made fouls to help the Lakers extend the margin to 20 points, and then hit a three-pointer to stop the Pelicans' comeback.
With 7:05 left in the third quarter, James had already scored 30 points, and with 5:44 left in the game, the Pelicans called a timeout, at which point the margin had reached 30 points, and LeBron was also out of the game at this time.
At the end of the third quarter, James played 22 minutes, shooting 9-of-12, 4-of-4 from three-point range and 8-of-8 from the free-throw line, finishing with 30 points, eight assists and five rebounds while shooting 75 percent from the field and 100 percent from three-point range.
Due to the large margin of points, LeBron did not play again in the final quarter, and at the end of the third quarter, his plus/minus reached +36, which was really shocking. This article was written by Yan Xiaobai, the author of Basketball Dreams.