LOS ANGELES — LeBron James stood at the scorer’s table midway through the first quarter early Sunday afternoon, furiously shaking chalk into his palms.
Around the Crypto.com Arena, cameras came out to capture the moment as he threw the powder into the air.
He was back, the kind of thing that could change everything for the Lakers.
For one game, at least, it meant the Lakers’ momentum was going to come to an end.
The Lakers had their three-game winning streak snapped Sunday by Chicago, the Bulls beating them 118-108.
Coming off the bench for just the second time in his career, James scored 19 points. Troy Brown Jr. and Malik Beasley each scored 18, while Dennis Schroder had 17 and Austin Reaves scored 13.
Anthony Davis had 15 points on six-of-eight shooting, James, Brown, Beasley, Schroder and Reaves all attempting more field goals.
Zach LaVine led the Bulls with 32.
James hadn’t played since injuring his foot in the second half of a Lakers win in Dallas on Feb. 26, hitting the ground with a non-contact injury where he told teammates and medical staff on the court that he “heard a pop.”
“It’s been better. That’s for sure,” he said that night. “But I definitely wasn’t going to go to the locker room and not finish the game out tonight.”
The Lakers didn’t have him on the court for a month.
Without James, though, they continued to build momentum from the All-Star Game, winning eight of the 13 games James missed. Starting point guard D’Angelo Russell even missed six of those games, the short-handed Lakers still finding ways to claw back to .500.
Sunday, Russell missed his second straight game because of a hip injury despite being listed as “questionable” heading into the contest.
James’ journey back to the court seemed to come out of nowhere.
Thursday, the Lakers said James had begun on-court activity” and a “gradual basketball movement program.” Soon after the updated, multiple reports said James was targeting a return in the final week of the regular season.
James pushed back on his Twitter account.
“There hasn’t been any target date for my return,” he wrote. “I’m just working around the clock, every day (3X a day) to give myself to best chance of coming back full strength whenever that is.”
“Whenever” became Sunday after James got upgraded twice ahead of the game with the Bulls. Saturday, James moved from “out” to “doubtful” on the team’s injury report, and early Sunday morning, he got upgraded to ‘questionable.”
He went through an intense pregame workout with assistant coach Phil Handy. Shortly after, the Lakers announced he’d been upgraded yet again.
James return came with former Laker Patrick Beverley, one of the players exiled at the trade deadline, returning to play against his former team.
In the weeks leading up to the game, Beverley was frequently critical of his time in Los Angeles, discussing poor chemistry on his podcast while openly admitting that he hoped to knock his former team out of the playoffs.
While Lakers players mostly dismissed Beverley’s comments Friday night, Davis did say Beverley could “come try” to push the Lakers out of the postseason.
Saturday, Beverley posted a photo of himself with Charmin Ultra Soft toilet paper and the caption “Rollin’ back to Cali this weekend. Get your cameras out.”
With the Lakers trying to come back in the final minutes, Beverly scored a key basket in the paint and celebrated by signaling that James was “too small.”
