The Los Angeles Lakers won the NBA title, following their victory in Game 6 over the Miami Heat, 106-93. For the 17th time in their history, the LAL reached the Larry O’Brien trophy.
Stellar Performance of the Lakers
The purple and gold were fantastic in Game 6, as they completely neutralized the Heat, who were having troubles in almost every aspect of play. Jimmy Butler was closed, the same goes for Tyler Herro and Duncan Robinson, meaning that Erik Spoelstra’s leading scorers were practically cut off in Sunday’s contest.
Lakers took the lead early on, making stops on the opposite end of the floor, and killing the morale of the Heat. It was obvious right away that Butler isn’t on the desired level of play, and when you slow him down, the rest of Miami’s crew isn’t playing well.
The only one who was above the average was Bam Adebayo, with 25 points and 10 boards in 35 minutes. Butler had 12, 8 assists and seven boards, but shooting only 10 times, which tells a lot about the Lakers’ passionate defense.
Jae Crowder also had 12 points, Duncan Robinson 10, and Tyler Herro 7. Goran Dragic came back to play, only to score 5 points in 19 minutes and to end the finals the way he started them, with a loss.
LeBron Riding the Wave of History
LBJ had a triple-double last night, and besides the title, he added his fourth NBA Finals MVP trophy. Right now, only he and Michael Jordan have that, leaving all the other competitors way behind. Yet, LBJ did it with three different teams, something nobody ever had.
James scored 28 points, grabbed the ball 14 times, dishing 10 assists to his teammates, all that while shooting 13-for-20. This time, there was no way for the LAL not to close the game with its leader in such rhythm.
Even with the Lakers being up 30 points, 64-34 near the end of the second period, he wouldn’t let his teammates relax but kept pushing forward, scoring points, and hard playing defense.
Anthony Davis and Rajon Rondo followed King James with 19 points each. Davis added 15 boards to that, while Rondo had 4 with the same number of assists.
Kentavious Caldwell-Pope had another solid performance, dropping 17 points, but also contributing very much on the defensive side of the ball. He left a much better impression than Danny Green since the start of the bubble, even though he wasn’t projected to be the starter with Green in the lineup.
As for LeBron, he posted 29.8 points, 11.8 boards, and 8.5 assists with 53% shooting from the floor, and was by far the best player of the entire series. Even if there were some doubts, this last game blew them away.
The Lakers now have a big job ahead of them, as Anthony Davis enters the free agency. It will be very interesting to see how the purple and gold work out the situation with the salary cap situation, and fit in all the salaries. It wouldn’t be odd to see some super-massive offer for Davis from some other team, potentially, Miami, who has one of the biggest amounts of cash available in the cap.
