The Los Angeles Lakers finally got LeBron James back on Thursday night, and even if he was admittedly only playing at about 80 percent of his full capacity, the team looked whole again as a result.
The Lakers went 6-11 without James, a stretch that dropped them from the Western Conference’s fourth seed to the ninth. Their 123-120 win over the LA Clippers pulled them to within one game of the eighth seed — and with it, a playoff berth — but their slip was still a missed opportunity to get some rest towards the end of the season.