LeBron James gets into Kentavious Caldwell-Pope's face during struggles to encourage him
Leadership!
The Los Angeles Lakers took down the West No. 2 seed Phoenix Suns in Game 2 of their NBA playoffs series on Tuesday night, but Kentavious Caldwell-Pope missed all four of his threes and he’s shooting 11.1 percent in the first two contests of the postseason.
That didn’t appear to matter at all to LeBron James.
During a timeout and with the Lakers up eight late in the fourth quarter, cameras caught a very animated James getting in KCP’s face — it looks like he told the veteran guard, “I WANT YOU TO SHOOT!”
That’s leadership right there. James knows Caldwell-Pope has been a solid shooter all season (41 percent from three in the regular season, a career-high), so it’s just a blip on the radar.
Real leadership.
“I want you to shoot!” LeBron to KCP pic.twitter.com/7GUOy1SPZp
— Complex Sports (@ComplexSports) May 26, 2021
"We are going to become a meme. Accept it, revel in it, own it" pic.twitter.com/FUt0Yos487
— CJ Fogler #BlackLivesMatter (@cjzero) May 26, 2021
familiar vibes pic.twitter.com/VVjR0qOBXx
— Moh (@LessIsMoh) May 26, 2021
Sure, make all the jokes you want, but Caldwell-Pope seemed more than happy to have LeBron encourage him, per Instagram:
Looks like LeBron telling KCP he wants him to shoot meant a lot to him
pic.twitter.com/ULrLMUSlHm
— Lakers Outsiders (@LakersOutsiders) May 26, 2021
Good stuff all around.