LeBron James has the Los Angeles Lakers surging again in advance of Saturday’s visit from the struggling Sacramento Kings, a team experiencing changes after head coach Mike Brown was fired on Friday.
James, set to play his final game before turning 40 years old, has guided the Lakers to four victories in their past five games, including a thrilling 115-113 road win over the Golden State Warriors on Christmas Day, when he scored a team-high 31 points with 10 assists.
The Lakers star will celebrate the arrival of his fourth decade on Monday, yet he looks spry as ever with 23.5 points per game, as well as 7.9 rebounds and 9.0 assists this season. The four-time MVP has finished with at least nine assists per game just twice in his 21 previous seasons.
Further, James was able to get the Lakers past the Warriors on Wednesday without Anthony Davis for most of the game. Davis departed early with an ankle injury.
Austin Reaves did his part with 26 points, 10 rebounds and 10 assists for his first triple-double of the season and third in four career campaigns. Reaves hit the game-winning basket on a driving layup with 1.7 seconds remaining.
“It’s always difficult to play without A.D., so I guess our job is even more heightened,” James said. “We have to do a little bit more. Everyone has to chip in, especially on the defensive end because A.D. is our anchor.”
Davis’ status for Saturday remains in question, potentially leaving 25.7 points and 11.4 rebounds unavailable. Los Angeles guard D’Angelo Russell is expected to return to the lineup after missing the Christmas Day win because of a sprained left thumb.
While Davis is listed as questionable to play, James and Rui Hachimura did not practice Friday because of illness.
In interim head coach Doug Christie’s first game, the Kings have their own availability questions. Domantas Sabonis missed Thursday’s 114-113 home loss to the surging Detroit Pistons with an illness and did not practice on Friday.
They do know they will be without Brown, who was fired just shy of 2 1/2 seasons in Sacramento with the team sitting 12th in the Western Conference at 13-18.
Without Sabonis on Thursday, the Kings appeared poised for a victory but were undone by a go-ahead four-point play from Detroit’s Jaden Ivey with 3.1 seconds remaining. De’Aaron Fox, who fouled Ivey on the decisive 3-pointer, led the Kings with 26 points.
The Kings also allowed 37 points in the fourth quarter, when they were outscored by 15. The inconsistencies on both sides of the floor were too much to ignore, leading to Brown’s ouster.
Brown, who ran practice Friday and was dismissed before the team boarded the plane to Los Angeles, took the Kings to the playoffs in the 2022-23 season after the franchise had missed the previous 16 postseasons.
Sacramento’s issues were on display when it led by 19 points in the third quarter Thursday, then saw Detroit go 7 of 12 (58.3 percent) from 3-point range in the final period.
“We knew this was a game that was winnable,” Fox said. “We gave ourselves a chance to win going into the fourth quarter and we didn’t do a good job. We gotta be able to finish games better.”
The Kings’ season-long five-game losing streak includes a pair of defeats to the visiting Lakers last week. The most recent of those games was Los Angeles’ 103-99 victory on Dec. 21.
The Kings’ losing streak is their longest since a seven-game slide in January 2022.
