Los Angeles Lakers: Win over Warriors may have come at a cost

The win over the Golden State Warriors on Christmas Day may come at a cost for the Los Angeles Lakers, who saw their lead man exit early

Entering their Christmas Day matchup with the Golden State Warriors, the argument could be made that the Los Angeles Lakers, in LeBron James‘ first year with the team, is on a better win pace than many expected them to be on at this point in the season.

Especially considering how balanced the Western Conference has been this season. Still, even with that said, I don’t think anyone (with a straight face) would make the argument that the Lakers are any real type of threat to the Warriors and their attempt to complete the Three-Peat.

However, during their Christmas Day clash they looked closer than they’ve ever looked at all this season.

The Lakers took control early, and led for much of the game en route to their 26-point win to put an exclamation on the NBA action for the day. However, it may have come at a cost as LeBron James was forced to exit the game during the third quarter after sustaining a groin injury.

The good news, it appears, is that it’s not as serious as originally believed. The National Telecast picked up LeBron mouthing “I heard something pop” but turns out it was nothing serious at all, and LeBron – and the Lakers – might’ve escaped disaster.

The big question will now be, how many games will he miss moving forward. You’d think that he’s going to miss at lease some time. Even though it wasn’t severe, it was bad enough where he wasn’t able to re-enter the game – perhaps that had something to do with the team taking care of business without him, we’ll never know.

Big picture, perhaps it’s time we start taking this Lakers team seriously. We’re nearly at the halfway point of the 2018-19 NBA season, and the Lakers have the West’s fourth-best record and are only 2.5 games back of the top spot in the conference.

If the Lakers can make a move at the NBA Trade Deadline, perhaps this team will gain enough momentum to make a move up the standings. At the very least, it’s time to start thinking about this team as a serious threat in the West.

Even more so if the Warriors are going to continue to screw around in the regular season. The Los Angeles Lakers are ahead of schedule, and that’s a great thing for the NBA.