With 25 points from LeBron James and 34 from Anthony Davis, Los Angeles beat Miami 116-98 at Disney and thus rose 1-0 in the finals of the best basketball in the world.
The Los Angeles Lakers brought out the utterly dominant power of their two biggest stars, Anthony Davis and LeBron James, and easily took the first game of the NBA Finals against the Miami Heat 116-98. The difference in the result had reached 32 points during the third quarter, one that was more in line with what was seen on the court, and what the Heat did was just cover it a little in a game that was already defined.
The team led by Frank Vogel had started uncoordinated on defense, with Dwight Howard, the starter, suffering the attacks of the Heat in the paint and Bam Adebayo and Jimmy Butler on pace. But from the seventh minute of the first quarter we saw something totally different. Davis began to act as a pivot, LeBron took the reins of his team well and the rest of the Lakers unleashed a cataract of triples (they finished with 15 three-point shots scored, a record in the history of the franchise in the Finals) and were a much superior to that of Erik Spoelstra, basing everything more than anything on the physical domain.
If for Miami everything looked bad already in the second quarter, the one they lost by 34-20, worse was with Goran Dragic leaving the locker room during that period so as not to return to the meeting and with Bam Adebayo also at the beginning of the second half. The Slovenian injured his foot and news is still expected, while the American suffered his right shoulder and did not return to the match. In addition, Jimmy Butler had bent his left ankle and played visibly touched in the second half.
With more and more work from AD, the game was already fully defined during the start of the third period and it was only a good night from rookie Kendrick Nunn (18 points, with 8-11 from the field) which made the result not have a very bulky difference, but the feeling that remains is that of an overwhelming Lakers against a Miami that everything went wrong, that showed its worst version of all the 2020 Playoffs and that will have to make strategic changes (and probably personnel too) in the face to the next game.
The next match of the Finals will be played next Friday at 10 p.m.
