LAKERS BEAT HEAT TO WIN TITLE
ORLANDO, Fla. — Through the darkness and drama, the questions about whether the Los Angeles Lakers’ luster was gone forever, remained the hope that a day like this would happen again.
The Lakers are NBA champions for the 17th time, defeating the Miami Heat 106-93 on Sunday.
This time they did it in a gym shaped like Mickey Mouse with two superstars who came to resuscitate the franchise. As Anthony Davis and LeBron James achieved their goal, they could hardly believe it. James followed Davis into the back of the arena where no one could see them. They emerged with James’ arms around Davis’ shoulders, the two of them bouncing and grinning.
At the end of a strange, heartbreaking season — the longest NBA season ever — James won his fourth championship. He notched a triple double in the clinching game.
It didn’t look like the rest. It didn’t happen at home or on the road. There weren’t fans, hostile or friendly, there wasn’t a familiar ride to an arena. There was just basketball in a bubble that protected them from a global pandemic that had gripped the nation. They remained on this campus in Orlando, steeling themselves for a mentally taxing existence, aided by the knowledge of their grander mission.
James wanted the chance to make history. He wanted to tell a story no one else could — that of a transcendent basketball player who came to Los Angeles to save the Lakers. He faced a skeptical fan base that needed proof he could do it —
that vandalized murals that dared suggest James was their king.
The LeBron James Era started with losses and the first serious injury of his career. Magic Johnson’s resignation in the spring of 2019 caught him by surprise, and his patience was tested by a group of 20somethings who wanted to impress him but didn’t know how.
The Lakers missed the playoffs for an unthinkable seventh consecutive year.
The reset in the summer of 2019 wasn’t smooth or painless, but it set the stage for a major recovery. It gave James the co-star he had yearned for — publicly at times. Anthony Davis
This adage had stopped being true in the NBA: what the Lakers want the Lakers get.
But it had been replaced by a modern NBA adage — what star players want
star players get. And these stars wanted to play for the Lakers.
James and Davis were perfect together. They won 24 of their first 27 games. They balked at the insistence that they weren’t beating strong teams. They began waiting for each other to leave the court after games, like best friends on a playground, though they had a much more serious purpose.
They got through a December lull and stormed through January. On Jan. 25, James passed Kobe Bryant on the all-time scoring list during a game in Bryant’s hometown of Philadelphia. Bryant congratulated him on Twitter.
On their flight back to the West Coast, Lakers center Dwight Howard woke his teammates up to a nightmare. Bryant’s helicopter had crashed in Calabasas, California. He and his 13-year-old daughter Gianna, were dead. So were seven other people that were on the plane with them.