World News – US – After year of drama, Lakers still reach NBA Finals

CAMEROON MAGAZINE - GM27/09/20203 Mins read63 Views

VISTA DU LAKE BUENA, Fla. (AP) – Here is a list of some of the things the Los Angeles Lakers have been through in the past 12 months: playing through a politically charged situation in China during the preseason and more massive fallout after returning home, the death of Kobe Bryant in a helicopter crash, pandemic, and suspension from play for more than four months, with the season shifted in a bubble to 2,500 miles from their homes, the ongoing battle against racial inequality in this country and the emotions unraveling to the point of giving up

One of the most unpredictable seasons has a very predictable finalist LeBron James, the once perennial beast of the East, is now the best of the West James and the Lakers are the champions of the Western Conference, the best team player now set to qualify for 10th time – the first nine of those to come during his Eastern Conference stints with Cleveland and Miami – and his team are set to clinch the title series for the first time in 10 years, when Bryant won his fifth and final championship

“Every time you put on purple and gold you think of his heritage,” James said. “You think of him and what he meant to this franchise for over 20 years. he represented, both on the ground and on the ground What he demanded of his teammates, what he demanded of himself We have some similarities in this sense «

The Lakers clinched that spot for the final on Saturday night, ousting Denver in Game 5 of the Western Finals, with the game just 365 days from the team’s first media session to start this season. Yes, that means this season now extends into a second year for the Lakers

Get four more wins, and an angst-filled season will end as smoothly as possible

James makes his ninth trip to the Finals in the past 10 seasons; the only exception in this streak was last year when the Lakers didn’t make the playoffs Anthony Davis goes for the title round for the first time. The same goes for Frank Vogel for the first time as a head coach, having had three excellent chances with Indiana in 2012, 2013 and 2014 thwarted by James and the Heat in each of those seasons

James has often said he was motivated by skeptics who said he couldn’t get the Lakers back to the top of the NBA mountain Vogel saw how that motivation drove him all season

“So much respect for him and love for him,” said Vogel “He gave power to this whole group by just buying into the plan we had with the way we wanted to play this year and by getting the whole group on board »

The NBA Finals will have a made-for-TV game, no matter what happens in the remaining game or two of the Eastern Finals

Miami leads Boston 3-2 in this series; If the Heat advances, it will be James vs. the Franchise who helped him win his first two rings during the famous ‘Big 3’ era of 2011-2014, and Heat president Pat Riley ran into an organization that drove him to become one of the best winners in gaming history when he guided the « Showtime » Lakers to four titles in his first seven seasons in charge

If the Celtics advance, the Finals will be the two most famous clubs in NBA history – the 17-time Celtics champions vs 16-time Lakers champions, facing each other in the title series for the 13th times And as the confetti fell late on Saturday night, James confessed that he was considering the sequel

« Boston had a few moments in my head, » said James « Miami also had a few moments in my head, on the challenge that it’s going to be, who will win the next series »

This season has been going on for so long, with so many twists and turns, it’s easy to forget it’s still the first inning for all those Lakers put together Vogel is in his first season as coach of the Team Davis and James were teammates this season for the first time Almost the entire roster was revised last summer, which is technically two summers ago now, but still « last summer » in NBA parlance

They made this season easy at times. It was anything but, and James knows the next four wins will be the hardest to get

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