The Los Angeles Lakers are looking to move on to the second round but before they are able to move on, they need to finish off the Portland Trail Blazers, who will be trying to keep their season alive despite not having their superstar and leader Damian Lillard, who is out for tonight’s Game 5 and likely the duration of the series. With that in mind, the Lakers are approaching the closeout game with a lot of respect for the Blazers, expecting them to play desperate with their season on the line.
“It’s the hardest game of the series, that’s what I know. It’s the hardest game because you know that the team you’re playing, they’re desperate,” LeBron James said Tuesday, according to SB Nation’s Sabreena Merchant. “They’re going to give you everything that they got because they know they can be sent home. So I come in with that same desperate mindset. I feel the same way. If we don’t win, I feel like we get sent home. And that’s just always been my motive, my psyche, my mindset going into a closeout game. I haven’t always been victorious but I have that mindset, and hopefully we can do just that on Wednesday.”
The Lakers are expected to have Anthony Davis in the lineup for the closeout game after he left Monday night’s game with back spasms.
