LeBron James Erupts for 56 Points in Lakers’ Win Over Warriors

LOS ANGELES (AP) — LeBron James scored a season-high 56 points and the Los Angeles Lakers beat the Golden State Warriors 124-116 on Saturday night to snap a four-game losing streak.

James had his third-most points in a regular season game, finishing with at least 50 for the 13th time. He had a career-best 61 for Miami against Charlotte in 2014.

“It’s funny, our [media] guys were following me off the floor tonight going to the locker room and they asked me how it feels to score 56. I said, ’Right now, I don’t give a damn about the 56. I’m just happy we got the win,’” James said.

James was 19 of 31 from the field, shaking off a blow to his right elbow in the first half. Russell Westbrook added 20 points, and Carmelo Anthony had 14.

“I felt pretty good with my game tonight, every part of the floor, and I was able to make a couple plays to help us win,” James said.

Stephen Curry had 30 for Golden State, and Jordan Poole added 23. The Warriors have lost four straight to drop to third overall in the NBA, a half-game behind Memphis and 8 1/2 games behind Phoenix.

“There’s more games coming, so we’ve got to do this ourselves,” Golden State coach Steve Kerr said. “We got to dig out of the mud, and nobody’s going to help us,”

Anthony completed a three-point play to give the Lakers a 114-112 lead with 3:29 to play, and Malik Monk hit a three to extend that lead to five after Austin Reeves stole Curry’s pass. James then threw down a thunderous alley-oop from Monk, who stole the inbound pass after a Los Angeles turnover.

Curry cut it to 119-116 with 1:06 left, but Reeves grabbed the offensive rebound and Anthony hit a corner three, allowing the Lakers to see it out.

James reached 40 points in the third quarter before putting the Lakers up 100-97 with 7:51 remaining in the game after knocking down three straight three-pointers.

“He was phenomenal tonight,” Anthony said. “The way that it came, in the rhythm of the game and the flow of the game, us making that comeback and him being a big reason for us coming back and making that run that he did. He just put us on his back tonight.”

Golden State ran over Los Angeles with 42 points in the second quarter to take a 67-62 halftime lead. Poole and Kuminga each had eight points, Curry added seven, and the Warriors made 69.6% of their shots from the field (16 of 23) and 75% from three-point range (6 of 8).

“I thought we had several chances to really break the game open,” Kerr said. “The last two minutes of the first half were kind of a disaster, frankly. And then we built the lead back up to maybe 12 early in the third quarter, and the next few minutes were terrible. This has been a pattern during this bad spell for us. We’re not stepping on teams when they are down. We’re making mistakes and allowing teams to hang around, and when you do that in this league you’re dead.”

James, who got 26 points in the half, was the reason the Lakers were able to hang around. It was his 24th straight game with at least 25 points to extend the longest streak of James’ illustrious career.