The good news? LeBron James, upgraded to doubtful on Saturday was quickly moved to questionable on Sunday ahead of the Lakers' game against Chicago, and declared himself good to go following pregame warmups.
Rather than start, the Lakers brought James off the bench, where he ended up playing 30 minutes, scoring 19 points on 6-11 from the floor, with eight rebounds and three assists. Five turnovers indicated some rust and timing issues with teammates, but all-in-all, James looked pretty comfortable in his first game action in weeks. Nor did he report any discomfort after the game. He now gets two days to rest and continue treatment before the Lakers play the Bulls in Chicago.
The bad news? Everything else that happened Sunday, in a 118-108 loss.
The Lakers were pretty flat out of the gate, got put way behind after the Bulls used a hot shooting spree to build out a lead in the first half. And playing uphill the entire way, the Lakers just couldn't hit enough shots or play enough defense to get it done. They were bad at the line, bad beyond the arc, and turned the ball over without getting Chicago to return the favor. Not exactly a recipe for success. Anthony Davis was mired in foul trouble, Malik Beasley continued missing shots, Austin Reaves was forcing things...
It was not good. And the Lakers paid for it.
With only seven games remaining, it's starting to look a little more like the Lakers will make the top 10 (Dallas is dropping like a rock, and the Jazz are banged up and fading), but their hopes of rising to sixth are still alive... but don't have much space to breathe at this point. The hope is with James available down the stretch (and hopefully with D'Angelo Russell, too, who missed his second straight game on Sunday) the Lakers can string together wins.
HOSTS: Andy and Brian Kamenetzky
SEGMENT 1: LeBron returns. How'd he look? Did Darvin Ham make it too complicated by bringing him off the bench?
SEGMENT 2: More on James... and more stuff the Lakers did poorly on Sunday.
SEGMENT 3: What about AD? What do the Lakers fix heading into Wednesday?
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