The Los Angeles Lakers have been plagued with injury woes to start 2024; the Purple and Gold entered their Wednesday night clash against the Miami Heat without D'Angelo Russell, Rui Hachimura, and Gabe Vincent. This has necessitated an emergence from one of their more unheralded players to provide LeBron James and Anthony Davis with some help, and it appears as though they're getting exactly that from second-year guard Max Christie.

Christie, amid all the injuries to the Lakers' backcourt players, was going to be in line for more minutes no matter what. But head coach Darvin Ham may have to give him all the minutes he can handle from here on out with what he's showing on the hardwood.

With around five minutes left in the third quarter of their game against the Heat, Max Christie received a pass from LeBron James on the left corner. Puncturing the Heat's 2-3 zone with ease, Christie drove the ball and went up strong against Bam Adebayo, throwing down a two-handed poster jam over the Defensive Player of the Year candidate, much to the delight of everybody in attendance at Crypto.com Arena.

Not every player would have the courage to take on Bam Adebayo at the rim, much less attempt to hammer home a facial jam right in his grill. But credit must go to Max Christie for taking on the challenge, and emerging as the winner — jolting the Lakers back to life after a flat offensive performance to that point.

With Cam Reddish providing zero in the way of offensive production on Wednesday night, the stage, indeed, was set for Christie to seize the opportunity that was right there for him to take. And the second-year guard is excelling. At the time of writing, the young Lakers guard has 12 points, which is good for third-most for the team, and his team has needed every bit of the offensive punch he has provided.

Alas, in what was a lackluster night for LeBron James, who finished with just 12 points on 6-17 shooting from the field, the Lakers ended up suffering a double-digit loss to the Heat and they now move to below .500 as a result of this most recent setback.