Los Angeles- The NBA’s In Season Tournament was a success. The Championship featured the league’s most winningest franchise The Los Angeles Lakers led by megastar Lebron James and one of the league’s most exciting teams The Indiana Pacers, who are on pace to set a record for most points averaged in a season.
On Saturday night, the Lakers defeated the Pacers 123-109 on a neutral court at T-Mobile Arena and took home the NBA’s Inaugural NBA In-season Tournament Trophy.
Anthony Davis led the charge for the Lakers with an outer-worldly and what LeBron described as a “Shaq-like” performance. Davis scored 41 points, grabbed 20 rebounds, dished out 5 assists, and recorded 4 blocks.
Behind Davis, the Lakers slowed down the Pacers high scoring offense and dominated inside the paint, posting an 86-44 advantage.
“I just had that look tonight,” said Davis. He said Lebron told him, ‘I’m going to follow your lead.’ And he was able to, and the team was able to allow me to be the guy and just feed off of it.”
The Lakers didn’t hide their motivation for winning the tournament citing the $500,000 cash prize for each player on the winning team was a significant factor and being etched in the history books as the first-ever In-Season Tournament Champion was something that LeBron James particularly prioritized.
“Records will be broken you know but one thing that will never be broken is being the first to do something and we are the first champions of the In-Season Tournament and nobody can ever top that,” said Lebron James during his Tournament MVP acceptance speech.
James added 24 points, 11 rebounds, 4 assists, and 2 steals in the championship.
The Lakers’ defense throughout the entire contest was phenomenal. They held an Indiana team that is averaging 128 points per game to 109 points on a 36.8 shooting percentage from the field.
Tyrese Haliburton who came in averaging 26 points and 13 assists in tournament play, led the Pacers in scoring with 20 points and 11 assists but struggled to find attempts with Los Angeles’ slew of 6-8 wing defenders draped all over throughout the game.
Haliburton expressed his frustrations post-game. “We just got outplayed tonight from the start of the game to the end of the game. Just didn’t do the job on loose balls, didn’t rebound, didn’t get enough stops when needed. They just outplayed us, and it’s frustrating.
The runner-up Pacers didn’t home empty-handed though, they went home 200,000 dollars richer for each player and gained tons of playoff-like experience for their very young roster.
“We’ve done some great things to get here, competed against some really good teams and battled, and you can’t let that happen for no reason,” said Haliburton after defeating the Sixers, Celtics, and Bucks who are three of the top teams in the Eastern Conference.
Rick Carlisle also expressed his gratitude for his players and the way they competed in the tournament. “I just want to express such a high level of pride for our guys. Our guys had an amazing run.. They brought a lot of attention to an exciting group of young players”
