One of the biggest issues the Los Angeles Lakers had last year was their lack of a go-to option down the stretch. The team played close game after close game — especially during their frisky start to last season — but not having a closer to go get a bucket limited the team’s performance in close games at times. To address this, the Lakers added LeBron James.
After the Lakers’ win over the Cleveland Cavaliers, head coach Luke Walton said that — as one would expect — having James as a go-to option in crunch time helped the team a lot (via Bill Oram of the Athletic):
“He is one of the best closers our game has ever seen,” Walton said, “so having him on the court, we knew if we could put together some stops, that was going to be the key.