How LeBron Stole Christmas

Christmas day. A day many count their blessings, enjoy the company of friends and family, eat good food, and exchange and receive gifts. Of course I did that to a degree, but instead of letting the spirit of Christmas lighten my usually cold, cynical heart I watched the Lakers-Heat game hoping that by some Christmas miracle both teams would lose (perhaps my heart is two sizes too small.) Oddly enough that did not happen.


Going into the game many people, myself included felt like the Lakers would take the game easily. With no real presence in the paint the Heat might have had a difficult time matching up up with the likes of Pau Gasol and Andrew Bynum. We were all wrong. Bynum did not start, as he has been battling injuries and Gasol was held to a rather modest 17 points. The Heat wasted no time crushing L.A's hopes by leading 20-14 after the first quarter. The second quarter went much better for the Lakers but they were still unable to cut into their deficit and went into the half trailing 47-38.




The real story, as it usually is these days, was LeBron . King James managed a triple double as he totaled 27 points, 10 assists and 11 rebounds, as for the second Christmas in a row he helped rout the the Lakers in a 96-80 contest. Say what you will about the Heat and the "Big 3" but they are certainly a force of nature. After a 96-80 win the Heat are now 23-9 and find themselves 2 game out of first in the east (the Celtics are in first.) The Lakers still boast an impressive record of 21-9 but playing in a bit of a stronger Western conference
are 4.5 games back from the always daunting Spurs who have an NBA best 25-4 record.


So there it is as promised. For a game that generated a lot of hype, it was actually kind of disappointing. The pessimistic, envious Bobcats fan in me watches a game like this looking for things to disapprove of, but the basketball fan in me sees LeBron versus Kobe as a real treat (even if Kobe had a modest game.) I hope everyone had a great Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanza and/or time off. Remember WUAG will be broadcasting the Duke/UNCG game on the 29th at 7pm. We also plan on having a recap here as well, but to be honest I nearly forgot I promised to do this one today. I'm sure everyone would have just been devastated if I had.

-SB