B's Team of the Week #3 (Los Angeles Lakers)
- brendan kapfer
- Oct 15, 2020
- 3 min read
Who would've thought we'd be sitting here talking about the Lakers and the Heat
in the Finals exactly one year ago as the season began. What was the longest and craziest season we have yet to see, ended with Lebron James getting a fourth championship and the Lakers tying the Celtics for all time NBA Championships. It concluded with Rajon Rondo getting as close to closure as you can possible get from heartbreak after heartbreak with the Boston Celtics. It ended with Jimmy Butler proving his worth and reminding us why we called him Jimmy Butler. It ended with the Los Angeles Lakers being my team of the week.
What they did this past week was nothing short of incredible. It is still remarkable to me that they did not have to go to a single game seven this entire postseason while playing without one of their key components in Avery Bradley. It shocks me that they were able to put the brakes on Tyler Herro, and somewhat slow down Jimmy Butler. That Miami Heat team played with some kind of fight and had one of the best chemistry's I have seen in a Finals team in a little while. They not only beat the league "favorite" Milwaukee Bucks, but beat the Celtics too and was able to somehow close them out.
With all that being said, let's get back to the Lakers incredible performance. They showed resilience in every single game because they had to always face some kind of real adversity. For example, in game one they were down by fifteen points, they came back and won it by sixteen. In game two they were able to ward off a late run by Miami and ended up winning by ten. Also, in game three they lost but Lebron and company still found a way to rebound from that and won game four by six points. They lost again in game five but that was because of a series of unfortunate events, a three that anybody would take and most NBA players wouldn't have the guts to take, a mishap on a pass that should have been shot by Morris or passed to Lebron. Finally, in game six when the lights were shining and the walls were caving in they found a way to blow the Heat wide open and win themselves a ring. It felt as if there would be a game seven but the Lakers would not let that happen.
This is what it looks like from a statistic point of view, I will leave a link below. The Lakes won through out-rebounding the Heat in every single game. This is what allowed the Lakers to run up the score, get second chance points and just physically and mentally dominate the Heat. It was a series in which Lebron James averaged 29.8 points a game and Anthony Davis a cool 25. A spectacular performance on the boards from Anthony Davis, Lebron James and a point guard you wouldn't expect this out of in Rajon Rondo.
Rajon Rondo played so well without even having a real direct impact on the score. He averaged less then ten points a game but still had an average of 5.2 rebounds a game and 5.5 assists a game. Caruso shooting the lights out definitely helped and Dwight Howard stepping up on the boards whenever it counted also contributed to the team winning the Finals. Maybe the most important factor all week was none other than the defensive rebounds. The Lakers had 200 defensive rebounds to the Heat's 36 offensive rebounds.
In the end, legacies aren't built through scoring the most points ever but through doing the things needed to win the game. I think if the Lakers play their cards right this could definitely be another legacy Lakers team. My team of the week went to them not because Lebron got his fourth ring, or Anthony Davis became the first player to ever win all four championships you can win at the highest levels. No, it went to them because everybody on that team played their part and contributed to this NBA Finals win. It should be very interesting to see what happens this off-season and what the Lakers do in the future regarding playoffs and the success they end up having or not having.
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