At 41, LeBron James is turning back the clock and taking the Lakers on a storybook playoff run

Q: How did LeBron James perform in the Lakers' playoff series against the Rockets?

LeBron James scored 28 points, along with eight assists and seven rebounds, in the Lakers' series-clinching win over the Rockets.

Q: What challenges did the Lakers face during the playoffs?

The Lakers faced significant challenges, including injuries to their leading scorers, Luka Dončić and Austin Reaves, which put them at a talent disadvantage.

Q: What role did LeBron James take on during the Lakers' playoff run?

LeBron James accepted a role as the team's third option, showcasing his ability to adapt and lead despite being the oldest player in the NBA.

Q: What was the outcome of the Lakers' first-round playoff series?

The Lakers won their first-round playoff series against the Rockets, clinching the victory in six games.

LeBron James had 28 points, eight assists and seven rebounds in the Lakers’ series-clinching win over the Rockets on Friday.Photograph: Kenneth Richmond/Getty Images (Photograph: Kenneth Richmond/Getty Images) The date is 12 March, and the Los Angeles Lakers are in the midst of a run that’s garnering a lot of well-deserved attention, in a month that sees them lose just two contests and win 15. The spirit of the locker room is at an all-time high, and it’s clear in talking to LeBron James, the 41-year-old storied veteran and greatest-of-all-time candidate who recently put his ego aside to accept a role as the team’s third option, that he believes what many around the NBA are starting to as well: his Lakers have a real shot at contention. “As you get older, you appreciate the moment more than anything. When you’re younger, you think about what you’ve done in the past, or what’s to come in the future,” he tells me when I ask how he’s been able to be so present of late, in light of the ups and downs of a topsy-turvy Lakers season. “But the only thing that we know for *sure* is happening is the moment.” The sentiment was more poignant than even James knew at the time. The wind would be swiftly and mercilessly knocked out of those buoyant sails just a few short weeks later, on 2 April, when in the throes of a biblical drubbing at the hands of MVP frontrunner Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and his class-of-the-conference Thunder, the door to the Lakers’ postseason was seemingly slammed in their faces in downtown Oklahoma City. The Lakers were already emotionally wallopped, outmatched by orders of magnitude, down 31 at half-time. And then, in the span of a couple of minutes in the third quarter, Luka Dončić and , the team’s backcourt starters, with injury. The blow was devastating. The season was over. That is, until it wasn’t. Related: As recently as a month ago, it appeared that James’s days as the No 1 option were behind him, and for good reason. He’s a quadragenarian, the oldest player in the NBA for two years running. He shares a team with Dončić, the 27-year-old perennial MVP candidate and heir apparent to the Lakers franchise. But when, just a few short weeks before the postseason was set to begin, the Lakers lost their two leading scorers, James was left with two choices: call it a season, or attempt to carry the team on his 6ft 9in frame, as he’d done so many times before. Neither Vegas gave the Lakers any chance against the Houston Rockets headed into their first-round series, in which they grabbed a commanding 3-0 lead before sealing the victory in six games in Houston on Friday night. The doubt was justifiable; the Lakers were at a clear talent disadvantage without Dončić and Reaves. (The Rockets’ would end up missing five of the six games in the series.) And the upset was, to be sure, a true team effort, filled with storybook storylines galore: , a trade-deadline castaway from , . , believed by many to be washed up when the Lakers acquired him last summer, proved wholly indispensable, as both a dirty work guy and an unlikely scoring resource. , the much-maligned center from the top of Dončić’s draft class whom ** last summer, was invaluable both defensively and on the glass. And , the “podcaster” second-year head coach who took immense flak after a disappointing debut postseason outing against the last season, proved his mettle in this series as both a tactician and leader. But the story of the series was James, who, in a critical Game 3, not only got a gutsy steal on the Rockets’ and hit a at the end of regulation, forcing the game to overtime (and ultimately a win), but did so mere minutes after going on a 10-0 Lakers run *with his* *own son,* including a . Throughout the series, James turned back the clock on both ends, averaging 23 points, eight assists and seven rebounds with nearly two steals per game. He was, by any measure, the best player on the floor. To say that no one has ever done what he’s doing at this age is an understatement. The truth is, no one has even come close. “I’ve done it throughout my career, but they still have to accept it,” James said in the locker room after Game 6, on slotting back into a leadership role for the team on which he’d taken a step back. “For them to allow me to lead them, that means a lot to me.” Redick, clearly moved after witnessing, first-hand, yet another chapter in the LeBron James storybook, could only shake his head. “For him to do it *again*, to answer the bell *again*, it’s really … it’s baffling, in some ways,” Redick said Friday night, attempting to stifle a grin. “The leadership aspect, he just has this ability to set the tone for the entire group, and he did that again tonight, and our guys responded. And I’m really happy for him.” Related: Father Time is undefeated, so the saying goes. But, as it turns out, his record isn’t quite so simple. James, well into his third decade as the face of the league and anywhere between 10 to 20 years older than most of his competitors, has proved a formidable challenger. “I’m kicking his ass,” James deadpanned, chuckling, after the series clincher. Twenty-three rounds in, he has Time on the ropes. Reaves, who was able to return from a severe oblique strain and provide reinforcements for the final two games of the series, said he doesn’t take what James is doing for granted. “I told him after the game, I’d like to think we have a pretty good relationship, [so] I went over to him and I was like, ‘You’re insane. The stuff that you’re doing … It’s not normal,’” he said. “With age, or whatever, he’s been in the league for 23 years … The way he can [still] control a game, it’s impressive. I don’t think you can say in words how special he was, not just tonight, but this series, this year. I’m just happy that I don’t have to play against him.” The Lakers will go on to face the aforementioned thorn in their side, the Thunder, in the Western Conference semi-finals. Certainly, this would not have been part of the plan, had had their druthers about a round-two opponent, especially with Dončić still sidelined. But, then again, nothing for Los Angeles went according to plan this year. It was going to be a transitional year, until things started to click, and the chemistry was too potent to deny. Then it was destined to be a tale of woe, a “what if?” footnote in the briefly intersecting careers of two megastars at different points in their trajectories in James and Dončić. In any of a myriad possible timelines, this wasn’t LeBron James’s team to carry. In all but one of them, we had seen the last of a superhero run from him in the NBA postseason. None of this was *supposed* to happen. But the basketball gods work in mysterious ways, and for the moment, the story isn’t over quite yet.