Stage set: Lakers on verge of title
LeBron & Co. looking to close out Heat in Game 5
LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla.— The trophy ceremony plans are getting finalized. Boxes are being shipped out of the NBA bubble in advance of the looming shutdown. Hotel rooms, sometime in the next few days, will be filled again by regular people looking for their long-awaited Disney fix.
For LeBron James and the Lakers, the stage is set.
TheNBA Finals— and the longest season in league history, thanks to the coronavirus pandemic and 41⁄ 2- month shutdown that followed — could end Friday, with James and the Lakers going into Game 5 with a 3-1 series lead over theHeat.
The Heat are simply looking for a way to extend this matchup into a Game6 thatwould be playedSunday, while James is looking for his fourth ring and, he thinks, awholenewlevel of respect from Lakers fans.
“What I’ve learned being a Laker is that the Laker faithful don’t give a damn what you’ve done before,” James said. “... They don’t care about your resume at all until you become a Laker. You’ve got to do it as a Laker, and then they respect you.”
James is 3-0 in finals close-out opportunities, and 3-1 leads in the title series are almost always turned into trophies. The exception was in 2016, when James led the Cavaliers back from 3-1 down against the Warriors.
TheHeat knowall this. They don’t seem bothered.
“Our guys are the oneswhoare out there in the arena marred by dust, blood, sweat and tears,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. “Our guys are the ones out there — 28 other teams aren’t out there. Everybody else is basically on their couches spectating on this one. Our guys are the ones that are in the arena, and that’s right where they are meant to be.”
Some of that was Spoelstra quoting TheodoreRoosevelt’s famed 1910 speech titled “Citizenship in a Republic,” which over time has become better known as “The Man in the Arena.” It’s one of James’ favorites as well, even getting citedbyhimearlier in theseNBA Finals.
“We’ve got a chance,” Heat center BamAdebayo said.“We still believe.”
The Heat fell apart in Game 1 of the series, not coincidentally in a game where they lost point guard Goran Dragic to a torn left plantar fascia and Adebayo later to a neck strain. The Lakers rolled to the 1-0 series lead, but since then, matters have been far closer: In Games 2-4, the Lakers have outscored the Heat by just five points.
“To me, this series is far from over,” Lakers coach FrankVogel said. “We’ve got a lot ofwork to do. This is a great basketball team that we’re playing, and my focus is solely on all the little details that go into whatwe have to do to get one morewin.”