Basketball: the fall of the Lakers, defending champions of the NBA

The Los Angeles franchise was eliminated Thursday in the first round of the playoffs by the Phoenix Suns.

The American basketball rarely lives this kind of situation. It is not every day that the defending NBA champion does not pass the first round of the playoffs, these final stages of the competition, which are held in the first instance in each of the two conferences (West and East) around which the championship is organized. This had already happened four times in the history of the North American league. On Thursday, June 3, it was the Lakers who added their name to those of San Antonio (2000, 2015), Miami (2007) and Dallas (2012).

The Los Angeles franchise, led by LeBron James, but orphaned of Anthony Davis, injured, was beaten at home (100-113) in the sixth game by the Phoenix Suns, who will face Denver, loser of Portland, in the Western Conference semifinals. "It was tough all the way through. Personally, I worked all my life for this moment, so it was not the time to deprive me of it, "said the player of the Phoenix Suns Devin Booker, author of 47 points.

The blow is hard for LeBron James, who had never experienced elimination in the first round of a finals. The last time he was eliminated by a team from his own conference was in 2010, in the Eastern semifinals, when he lost with Cleveland against Boston.

This elimination had led him to leave Ohio to rebound in Miami, with two titles at stake. It is unlikely that the counter-performance of Thursday night will be followed by the same effects, because LeBron James is bound to the Lakers until 2023.