ORLANDO – The Los Angeles Lakers dominated the Miami Heat 106-93 on Sunday to win a record-equalling 17th NBA championship but their first in a decade.
Superstar LeBron James, who was named Most Valuable Player of the 2020 NBA Finals, fuelled the Lakers with a triple-double of 28 points, 14 rebounds and 10 assists, capturing his fourth NBA title with a third different team.
It’s the fourth time in four championship runs that James has captured MVP honours after he did so with Miami in 2012 and 2013 and with the Cleveland Cavaliers in 2016.
Anthony Davis added 19 points and 15 rebounds as the Lakers completed a four-games-to-two triumph in the best-of-seven NBA Finals more than eight months after the death in a helicopter crash of team legend Kobe Bryant – who led the Lakers to their last title in 2010.
The Lakers out-hustled, out-muscled and out-played the Heat, making sure it wouldn’t come down to any last-gasp effort as it did when they were denied in game five on Friday.
Los Angeles had blown it open by halftime, their 36 second-quarter points equalling the Heat’s entire first half total as the Lakers took a 64-36 lead into the break.
Four Lakers players had scored in double-figures by halftime.
Rajon Rondo was a perfect six-for-six from the floor in the first half as the Lakers built the second-largest halftime lead in NBA Finals history.
Rondo, who won a title with the Celtics in 2008, scored 19 points off the bench. Kentavious Caldwell-Pope added 17 and Danny Green scored 11.
The Lakers’ 17 titles pulled them level with the Boston Celtics for the most all-time. – AFP, October 12, 2020
