Los Angeles Lakers: Don’t worry about the performance in Cleveland

The Los Angeles Lakers did walk away victorious over the Cleveland Cavaliers but the performance itself was not all that promising for the purple and gold.

LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers traveled to the Quicken Loans Arena on Wednesday to face off with the two-win Cleveland Cavaliers. While this game did not provide a high-profile matchup on paper, it was one of the most anticipated games of the NBA season as it is LeBron’s homecoming to Cleveland.

This will be the only time that James heads back to Cleveland this season and he was met with a chorus of cheers that much different than the hostility that he was met with in his initial return to Cleveland in 2010.

James went out and does what he does every night, nearly earning himself a triple-double and giving us yet another eye-popping stat line (although, are they really ever eye-popping with LeBron anymore?)

LeBron dropped 32 points on 11-20 shooting to go along with 14 rebounds and seven assists. There were other promising box scores, especially for the struggling Lonzo Ball. In 36 minutes, Ball shot 7-11 from the field for 15 points, seven rebounds and six assists.

While James was great and Ball had a fantastic game, the Los Angeles Lakers did not look great for most of this game and it took an 11-point run in the fourth quarter to get out in front of the Cavaliers.

The Cavaliers were winning for most of the game despite only entering the contest with two wins and only shot 38.2 points from the field. We get there is a narrative around James’ return to Cleveland but c’mon, this is a team the Lakers should be wiping the floor with.

A win is a win at the end of the day and while it should be concerning for a team to be pushed to the brink by the Cavaliers, I do not think Laker fans should be worried, at all.

First of all, there is the joke that is going around social media that this was due to the Lakers spending too much time in Miami. While we cannot solely blame the city of Miami, I am sure it had some sort of impact on the team’s sluggish performance.

Most importantly, this was a game that the Lakers dominated in almost every area and were simply beating themselves. Los Angeles shot 13.1 percent better than the Cavs, out-rebounded them, had more assists, seven more blocks, had fewer fouls and scored a staggering 50 points in the paint.

What killed this team was free-throw shooting (what is new) and turnovers. Los Angeles shot just 71.4 percent from the charity stripe (20-28) while the Cavaliers shot 93.3 percent from the arc (14-15).

It was the turnovers that really made the difference and was the only reason this game was close. Los Angeles turned the ball over a staggering 15 times compared to the Cavaliers’ three.

Cleveland played smart, slowed the game down and milked out as much clock as they could to keep the Lakers out of a rhythm until that run in the fourth quarter. The good gameplan, mixed with the Lakers perhaps having too many days off, gave the Cavs a lead the team probably should not have had to begin with.

Thus, while you probably were sweating when the Los Angeles Lakers were losing to the worst team in the league, there is nothing to worry about. The Lakers squeaked out a win in a night where they played pretty poor. Bad nights happen.