LOS ANGELES – LeBron James returned from a two-week injury absence Saturday night, looking rested and ready to lead the Los Angeles Lakers down the stretch toward the postseason.
And then almost nothing else went right for the Lakers during a 146-115 thrashing from the Chicago Bulls.
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“We’ve got to play better basketball than we did tonight, and what we did on our last road trip,” James said before the Lakers headed out on a four-game trip beginning in Orlando on Monday.
James scored 17 points after missing the Lakers' previous seven games with a strained left groin, but the top scorer in NBA history looked rusty in certain moments — particularly late in the first quarter, when he threw a long sideline inbounds pass that curled out of bounds without ever getting close to one of his teammates.
But James' return was just one part of a comprehensively poor effort by the Lakers, who took their second straight loss and hit the latest trough in their peaks-and-valleys season since acquiring Luka Doncic.
Not even the simultaneous return of starting forward Rui Hachimura, who had missed 12 games with a knee injury, could make the Lakers competitive against the inspired Bulls.
“I don’t know if we assumed because we had everybody back that it was just going to be like it was three weeks ago, and that’s just not how this works,” Lakers coach JJ Redick said. “The thing that we have talked about all season long, though, is grace, so the group inherently gets some grace for what these last three weeks has looked like. (But) that was the worst our defense has looked, frankly, all year, but certainly in the last three months.”
Indeed, the Lakers have been one of the NBA's best teams for long stretches with their new superstar duo — but they've also had enough terrible outings to suggest there's much more work to do. Their schedule also has been absolutely brutal: They're in a stretch of 20 games in five weeks, and they just played five home games in seven days.
The 40-year-old James is still confident the Lakers will find the best version of themselves. They had won eight games in a row before James' injury, and they put together a three-game winning streak earlier this week before his return.
“I already know what this team is capable of,” James said. “No matter who’s been in the lineup, who’s been out of the lineup, we’ve been able to sustain our effort and try to continue to play the right way, both offensively and defensively. It was great to see, even through some of the adversity, even through the injuries and the schedule, we were still able to win ballgames.”
James was noncommittal about the state of his recovery from the groin injury, which happened late in the Lakers’ loss at defending champion Boston on March 8. Los Angeles promptly lost all four games on that road trip, but recovered to win three straight at home before its current two-game skid.
“I just take it day by day,” James said of his injury. “I can't work out what's going to happen in the future, but obviously I got some work on it today. Hopefully a little more on the plane. It's a long flight to Orlando, and then I'll get ready for Monday. I hope it's behind, but I won't look too far in the future.”
Before his injury, James averaged 25.0 points, 8.5 assists and 8.2 rebounds during his record-tying 22nd NBA season.
Hachimura is the Lakers' fourth-leading scorer with 13.3 points per game, but he scored five points in only 18 minutes during his comeback game. He said his knee is “70, 80 percent” healthy, but he can't wait for it to heal fully.
“Our defense was awful today,” Hachimura said. “We weren’t locked in, and our game plans, we didn’t execute. They were getting everything — 3s, transition, layups, whatever. I think we’ve just got to focus on defense. Our offense is going to be fine. We know that.”
Los Angeles lost to Milwaukee on Thursday while Doncic and Austin Reaves also sat out, leaving the Lakers without four usual starters to play their sixth game in eight days. Doncic and Reaves combined for 59 points against Chicago, but their teammates couldn't keep up.
“We just haven't had a lot of time with our full team available,” Redick said. “We've had to manage this all season long, no matter which iteration of this team it's been. So I'm excited for these last 13 games to build some continuity, build some chemistry, and hopefully the way we were playing prior to the Boston game, we can kind of get back to that.”
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