As the clock slowly made its way toward zero in the fourth quarter of the Los Angeles Lakers' blowout loss against the Phoenix Suns in Game 5, LeBron James had seen enough and exited the court early to get to the locker room. The visual of LeBron walking back through the tunnel midway through the fourth quarter is surely etched into the minds of many.
Lakers head coach Frank Vogel came to LeBron's defense after the game, saying he was just going to get his treatment started ahead of the must-win Game 6, according to Lakers Nation's Ryan Ward.
While that's probably what James was doing, it's certainly not the best look for him to be bailing on his teammates early as they're getting blown out. It's not a huge deal in the grand scheme of things, especially since he has been dealing with his own injury issues, but it's only more ammo for his critics.
With Anthony Davis out, LeBron didn't deliver the all-time great performance many expected from him. It probably wouldn't have mattered even if he did play great given how bad his teammates were and how hot the Suns were, but he struggled from the outset as the Lakers got blown away. While James did finish with a team-high 24 points, there was some stat-padding going on in the third quarter when the game was already out of hand. He was also a team-worst minus-24.
It's unclear if Davis is going to suit up for Game 6. LeBron is currently operating under the assumption that he will not play. Being back at home should be a help regardless, but Los Angeles is going to need to play much better in order to extend this series.
That starts with LeBron James, who's trying to avoid his first first-round series loss in his illustrious career.
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