Welp, that was a breathtaking beatdown.
Game 1s haven’t always featured the Lakers’ best effort this postseason, but Los Angeles put on a blistering performance that was downright scary Wednesday in the first game of the NBA Finals that left the Heat wondering what the hell happened and plenty of observers questioning if this series will be over after three more games.
Calling a sweep after Game 1 might be premature and could easily make plenty of people on the timeline look foolish who already declared the series over. But behind superb 3-point shooting in the first half, swarming defense, and the dynamic duo of LeBron James and Anthony Davis—who the Heat predictably had no answers for—the Lakers made this one a laugher. After trailing by 13 points early in the first quarter, the Lakers quickly morphed into juggernauts and rolled to a 116-98 trouncing of the Heat.
"You know, from that moment when it was 23-10, we started to play to our capabilities," James said. "We started flying around. We started getting defensive stops. We started sharing the ball a lot better offensively and just got into a really good groove."
Did they ever. James finished with 25 points, 13 rebounds, and 9 assists while Davis once again led the Lakers in scoring this postseason, pouring in a ferocious 34 points and grabbing 9 boards in his NBA Finals debut.
Los Angeles began the run to the Finals losing its first two Game 1s against Portland and Houston and many were on-guard to see if the upstart Heat—the first No. 5 seed to make the Finals in NBA history—could steal a victory over heavily favored LA. But after a sluggish Lakers start that saw the Heat run out to a quick double-digit lead, LA orchestrated a 16-point turnaround to close out the first quarter, reeled off 13 straight points in the second quarter with James largely on the sidelines, and entered halftime with a 17-point lead that ballooned to a laughable 32-point deficit in the third quarter before putting it into cruise control in the fourth.
Miami struggled all night against the Lakers' superior size, failed to hit threes, got little from its starters, and didn’t show much fight after halftime.
Adding injury to insult, the Heat saw one of their starters miss the second half of the game with a foot issue (Goran Dragic), their most indispensable player limp around after turning an ankle (Jimmy Butler), and their prized young big grimace in pain from a shoulder strain (Bam Adebayo). You could call what went down for the Heat in Game 1 a disaster, but honestly that might be an understatement.
“The Lakers set the tenor, the tone, the force, the physicality, for the majority of the game and they just took control and we weren't able to get it back,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said after the game.
Game 2 is Friday and if the Heat do not figure something out—and worse, are missing the services of some of their key contributors—the Lakers look like they’re going to waltz to the franchise’s 17th NBA title.
"There's nothing to be said. We can watch all the film in the world, we understand, we know what we did not do, what we talked about we were going to do, we didn't do," Butler said. "We didn't rebound, we didn't make them miss any shots, we didn't get back, all of those things led to the deficit that we put ourselves in."
Here are eight other observations from Game 1.
LA Got Hot From Deep
Miami super sub Tyler Herro entered Game 1 the leading scorer off the bench in these playoffs and after some scintillating performances in the Eastern Conference Finals, the 20-year-old rookie was a trendy pick by some pundits out there to earn Finals MVP honors.
Well, Herro probably would prefer to forget his first game in the Finals considering he finished with 14 points and was a team worst -35 during his 30:15 of action.
Herro was considered by many to be an x-factor in this series and by far the most explosive scoring sub for either squad. If Miami’s going to make this series, they’re going to need much more from Herro.
It didn’t happen a ton, but it happened enough to know we don’t need to see any more of it. And from here on out the Heat are going to need to do all they can to prevent their young sharpshooters Herro and Duncan Robinson from getting switched onto LeBron. Because the times Herro and Robinson were switched onto the three-time Finals MVP the results were not pretty as James absolutely abused Heat defenders.
Listen, we all know nobody can really guard LeBron. And nobody’s ever really shut him down. But Miami’s gotta do whatever’s necessary to prevent James from facing so many easy mismatches and do a much better job of doubling him and Davis. But give the Lakers offense a ton of credit because they schooled the Miami defense all night long passing out of double teams, finding their open teammates—especially on the wing and in the corners—and, most importantly, nailing their open looks.
“We're better than we showed tonight,” Spoelstra said. “Now this is a very highly skilled, talented team. They have guys at the point of attack in James and Davis that are going to break your defense down, can make plays over the top. So you have to be on a string, and you can't start to make things up, you have to be extremely disciplined and stay with it. There was too many times that they got us out of our typical things that we do. But that's also a big-time credit to them.”
Miami Injuries
Green (who shockingly had three blocks) joined James in making a Finals appearance with his third team. The duo join a group of 13 other players in NBA history who have made a Finals with three different squads. The last player to join the group before James and Green was Kendrick Perkins back in 2018 with the Cavs.
As bad as the Lakers have been in Game 1s this postseason, it pails in comparison to how bad LeBron James's teams have been in Game 1s of NBA Finals historically. James came into Wednesday with a 1-8 record in Game 1s and had lost his previous seven Finals openers. Of note, James has only lost two series over his career when his team has won Game 1.
Game 1 marked the 50th NBA Finals game of James’s career. He tied Magic Johnson for sixth on the all-time list Wednesday. Bill Russell holds the record with 70 NBA Finals games played.
Earlier Wednesday, the NBA announced James had the best-selling jersey upon the NBA’s restart in July based on NBAStore.com sales from July 30 to Sept. 28. Davis had the third best-selling jersey. Butler’s Heat jersey was No. 10.
Notably, two stars who did not play in the bubble still appeared in the top 10.
1. LeBron James
2. Luka Doncic
3. Anthony Davis
4. Jayson Tatum
5. Giannis Antetokounmpo
6. Stephen Curry
7. Kevin Durant
8. Damian Lillard
9. Kawhi Leonard
10. Jimmy Butler
