LeBron James almost had a major gaffe early into his Lakers tenure. In a close game with the Spurs, James made a huge 3-pointer to send the game into overtime. However, he almost made a huge mistake that could have cost Los Angeles the game. Initially, James wanted to take a timeout to pause everything and draw up a play.
The problem with this strategy from James? The Lakers had no timeouts to use. Video shows him clearly making the timeout hand motion, but the refs didn’t see it. He quickly realizes his mistake though and carries on to hit the huge bucket.
LeBron clearly called a timeout in regulation before his 3 to send the game into overtime. The Lakers didn't have any timeouts remaining. https://t.co/560QXaQ0Q2
— Dime (@DimeUPROXX) October 23, 2018
Oops? Imagine the fallout on this had James been caught making the timeout motion here. If the refs had decided to give him the timeout then the Lakers would have lost possession in the ball. That would likely have cost Los Angeles the game. At least James made up for it by hitting the overtime forcing 3-pointer merely seconds later — unfortunately for the Lakers, two missed LeBron free throws at the end of overtime helped setup a Spurs game-winner from Patty Mills.
It’s ironic to see James make a potential mistake when it comes to late-game clock management. It wasn’t that long ago that a piece of his soul died following J.R. Smith’s mistake at the end of Game 1 of the NBA Finals. Guess everybody, including James, is prone to mistakes sometimes. At least it’s still October.
