LeBron on 1st Lakers triumph: ‘Feels great to win, period’

LOS ANGELES, USA – LeBron James scored all his points in 3 quarters and likely would have posted his 74th career triple-double if he hadn’t sat out the 4th with the game already in hand.

But for the four-time NBA Most Valuable Player, that hardly mattered.

“It feels great to win, period,” he said. “But it feels good for us to know that what we have been doing over training camp and these first few games of the season that we are continuing to get better. 

“We got better tonight and we are going to try and continue that going forward.”

James had 19 points, 10 assists and 7 rebounds as Los Angeles clobbered the Phoenix Suns, 131-113, giving him his first win as a Laker.

Lance Stephenson had 23 points, JaVale McGee added 20 points, and Kyle Kuzma 17 for the Lakers, who had 7 players reach double figures.

James signed with the Lakers 3 months ago after leading the Cleveland Cavaliers to 4 straight NBA final appearances, including their first championship in 2016.

James joins a Lakers club that has missed the playoffs in each of their last 5 seasons, the longest playoff drought in franchise history for the 16-time NBA champions.

“We stuck to the game plan,” James said. “We were able to get them out of it in the later stages of the 1st quarter, and then took it into the 2nd quarter and into the half, all the way to the end of the game.” 

Los Angeles was without suspended guard Rajon Rondo for his role in a heated fist fight with Houston Rockets Chris Paul on Saturday night.

They were also missing Brandon Ingram who was slapped with a four-game ban for starting the melee, then, after being separated, charging back into the kerfuffle and throwing a wild sucker punch from behind at an unsuspecting Houston player. – Rappler.com