LeBron Addresses Durant Comments, Ingram Injury After Lakers Win

The Los Angeles Lakers beat the San Antonio Spurs 121-113 at the Staples Center on Wednesday night to make four wins on the trot. It was not a straight forward win as they needed a fourth quarter blitz from LeBron James to take them over the line.

The Lakers started strong by outscoring the Spurs 31-23 in the opening quarter, but were then outscored in the next two quarters, especially in the third. They entered the fourth quarter chasing the game and continued to do so with just over six minutes remaining.

But James continued to show why the team is dependent on him down the stretch by scoring 20 points and taking them to their fourth straight win and their eighth out of nine games at home. The 14-time NBA All-Star finished with 42 points, six assists and five rebounds.

Kyle Kuzma and Lonzo Ball also had good games with 22 and 14 points respectively. The former also contributed with nine boards and five assists and admitted immediately after that the team really “needed this win”.

The one major blow despite the win for the Lakers was an injury to guard Brandon Ingram, who rolled his ankle after landing on LaMarcus Aldridge’s foot during a 1-on-1 jumper. He managed just five minutes before suffering the injury and would not return for the rest of the clash after the negative x-ray back in the locker room.

Josh Hart replaced Ingram in the second-half of the game and according to Michael J Duarte, the Lakers guard had his ankle wrapped up and was moving around on crutches in the locker room after the game. The severity of the injury was confirmed after James admitted that he will be out for a “little while” while calling for the other players to step up in his absence. Aldridge was handed a flagrant 1 foul for moving while Ingram was in the air.

“Huge. I mean obviously we have had a pretty good rotation with guys on whose gonna play and where we gonna play and the lineup’s out there,” James said about losing Ingram to injury at the start of the game. “And then you lose your starting two guard to go down in the first couple of minutes of the game it just derailed our offense.”

“Unfortunately he [Ingram] is going to be out for a while and we have the other guys step up and that’s the nature of the game,” he added.

James also praised his teammates – Hart, Ball and Kuzma - for stepping up their game in the fourth quarter when at one point they were down by eight points. The three-time NBA champion, however, refused to respond to the comments made by Kevin Durant about how he understands the reason many top players might not want to play with James, as he has not read the full transcript of the comments made by the Golden State Warriors forward.

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