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szdaily -> Sports -> 
Lakers crush Heat to capture 17th NBA title
    2020-10-13  08:53    Shenzhen Daily

FOR the first time since Kobe Bryant’s fifth and final title a decade ago, the Lakers are NBA champions.

LeBron James had 28 points, 14 rebounds and 10 assists, and the Lakers beat the Miami Heat 106-93 Sunday night to win the NBA Finals in six games.

In his record-setting 260th playoff game, James became the first player to lead three different teams to a title. He was also named Finals MVP for the fourth time unanimously. Only Michael Jordan has more with six.

Anthony Davis added 19 points and 15 rebounds. He is a champion for the first time. Davis owned the interior on both ends, the reason the Lakers outscored the Heat by a 34-16 first-half margin in the paint. Davis dedicated the victory to Bryant, the Lakers legend who died in a helicopter crash this year.

“We didn’t let him down,” said Davis. “Ever since the tragedy, all we wanted to do is do it for him.”

It was Kentavious Caldwell-Pope and Rajon Rondo who combined for 20 of the Lakers’ 36 points in the second-quarter, pushing the lead to as large as 30 just before the break. A Lakers team long criticized for its lack of depth had plenty when it mattered.

The 34-year-old Rondo scored 19 points on 8-of-11 shooting off the bench to join Hall of Famer Clyde Lovellette as the only other player to win titles with the Lakers and rival Boston Celtics. Rondo was 22 years old when his Celtics beat the Lakers by a close-out record 39 points in Game 6 of the 2008 Finals.

Sunday’s game seemed headed that way until Miami took a chunk out of the deficit in the fourth quarter.

Bam Adebayo led the Heat with 25 points, 10 rebounds and five assists, his best production since returning from a neck strain that cost him Games 2 and 3 of the series. Miami’s Goran Dragic played for the first time on the plantar fascia tear he suffered in Game 1, contributing five points off the bench.

Neither resembled the players that led the Heat to the Finals, and it took two monumental performances from Jimmy Butler to take two games from the Lakers in this series. Butler played as though his 47 minutes of Game 5 had taken their toll, totaling 12 points, eight assists and seven rebounds in the loss.

“I didn’t hold up my end of the bargain, so that means I got to do it next year,” Butler said following his first season in Miami and first Finals appearance. “I’m here to win one. I didn’t do my job, so moving forward, I got to hold up my end of the bargain.”

Vogel’s decision to start Alex Caruso in place of Dwight Howard unlocked a small-ball lineup that dominated on both ends. Davis held down the paint, James locked up Butler, and Caruso, Caldwell-Pope, Rondo and Danny Green chased around Miami’s shooters all night, holding the Heat to a 36.2 field-goal percentage through three quarters.

The Heat, a fifth seed entering the playoffs, have no reason to hang their heads. Few gave them a chance to win the Eastern Conference, and they made the Finals a series when injuries had everyone writing them off again. With the exception of James and the champions across the hall, no player’s legacy was altered in Orlando more than Butler, whose will to win challenged James like few others have before him.

“These are going to be lifetime memories that we have together,” Spoelstra said. “Regardless of whatever happens in the future, we’re going to remember this year, this season, this experience and that locker-room brotherhood for the rest of our lives.”

(SD-Agencies)

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