LeBron James and Lakers end a month of tests and adversity with dominant win

LeBron James stopped on the other side of the midcourt line, his feet planted and his eyes centered on the rim. And after the ball swished through the hoop just before the halftime buzzer, James extended his right arm and quickly chopped down as if to say “count it.”

They did. It put the Lakers up by 29 points.

The team closed out its February schedule with more exclamation points than a Magic Johnson tweet, battering the Golden State Warriors 117-91 in a game that was over even before James’ buzzer-beater.

Even with Anthony Davis stuck on the sideline in tattered denim, the Lakers gave the kind of performance that made you believe that this team is good enough to accomplish any of its goals — so defensively stout and so offensively skilled and energized.

It was, however, one day of 28 in the month, a stretch of games that codified the immense challenges the Lakers face today and the ones that are yet to come.

The Lakers opened the month on a winning streak that stretched to seven games, but in the winning, the seeds of the adversity that would soon bloom began to sprout.

Davis landed on the injury report with a sore Achilles tendon, a massive red flag even though he missed only two games. James took on huge minutes in three straight overtime games (kicked off by a double-overtime win) against inferior opponents playing with incomplete rosters.

They lost Davis again when he took a false step against the Denver Nuggets, forcing the team and its fans to hold their collective breath while tests confirmed that his season wasn’t over. And then with Dennis Schroder forced into a quarantine after a potential COVID-19 exposure, the team dropped four straight, including lopsided losses to Brooklyn and Utah.

“It’s been extremely tough,” James conceded.

To Steve Kerr, it was predictable.

Kerr, Golden State’s coach, has won five NBA championships as a player and three more as a coach — the titles providing him with plenty of opportunities to repeat, making him one of the NBA’s foremost experts on the topic.

In normal circumstances, the journey back to the NBA’s pinnacle is treacherous. In these circumstances, with physical and emotional fatigue at new levels, it might be impossible.