LeBron James is perhaps the most dangerous transition scorer in NBA history. No player has ever better embodied the idea of a freight train coming down the tracks with the ball in his hands. He's so strong and so fast and can jump so high that once he has a head of steam on the fast break, there's usually nothing a defense can do. He's going to get his two points.
Well... for the better part of 20 years, he did just that. But on Tuesday, in the middle of Game 2 of the Western Conference finals between the Los Angeles Lakers and Denver Nuggets, he came up short. It wasn't the defeat that did him in. It wasn't an injury either. James just fumbled the ball.
LeBron blew the dunk 😅 pic.twitter.com/bRvv3lGYGh
— ESPN (@espn) May 19, 2023
It looks as though James is gathering the ball for a windmill, hoping to make a statement with his dunk. Had he gone up with two hands on the ball? He'd likely have scored two relatively clean points for the Lakers. Instead, he turned the ball over. It wasn't even the only inexplicable miss of the night for James. A few possessions earlier, James short-rimmed a wide-open layup in the half-court.
Playoff games at this level are incredibly competitive. Only missed bucket can change a game, and one game can change a series. If the Lakers lose this game by a single possession, they'll look back on this moment as one of the defining points of the game.
