LeBron James made his long-awaited return for the Los Angeles Lakers on Saturday evening after a seven-game absence with a tense left Lies.
But the Chicago Bulls made it a miserable evening for him after they had won an impressive 146-115 victory on the road.
The top scorer in the NBA history started in Crypto.com Arena in the final of the five-game Homstand of the Lakers.
Luka Doncic scored 29 of his 34 points in the first half and hit eight three-powerers, while James had 17 points.
Neither of the superstar could do something to delay the bulls, who burned the normally solid defense of Los Angeles on the way to their seventh victory in nine games.
The 146 points of Chicago were 12 more than the Lakers had allowed this season in a match.
LeBron James made his long -awaited return for the Los Angeles Lakers on Saturday evening
James started against the Chicago Bulls in the Five Game Homstand of the Lakers
James was injured in the loss of the Lakers on 8 March on 8 March.
The loss broke an eight-game winning streak that the Lakers had pushed in second place in the Western Conference, and they lost three more road races without James before gathering themselves to win the first three games of their current Homstand.
The 40-year-old James left the Lakers during their journey to receive treatment, but he participated in various training sessions last week.
James was an average of 25.0 points, 8.5 assists and 8.2 rebounds while playing in 58 of the first 69 matches of the Lakers during his record type 22nd NBA season.
Two games before his most recent injury, he became the first player in the NBA history who scored 50,000 combined points in the regular season and the play -offs.
Los Angeles also welcomed back from Voorwaart Rui Hachimura of a 12-game absence with a knee injury before the Lakers stood opposite the bulls.
Hachimura is the fourth leading scorer of the Lakers with 13.3 points per match and a valuable two -way contribution.
“Getting those two boys back, I don't know what the numbers are, but we have had a drop-off in our transition attack, and it's because we didn't have those two boys,” said coach JJ Redick.
Los Angeles lost to Milwaukee on Thursday, while Luka Doncic and Austin Reaves were also outside, so that the Lakers played their sixth game in eight days without four usual starters.
Doncic and Reaves have already been released to return to the line -up against Chicago.
“We just didn't have much time available with our entire team,” said Redick.
'We had to manage this for the entire season, regardless of what iteration of this team it has been. So I am enthusiastic about these last 13 games to build some continuity, build some chemistry, and hopefully the way we played before the Boston game, we can come back to that a bit. '
