Chris Szagola/Associated Press If anyone in the NBA knows how to reach another level under playoff pressure, it is LeBron James. After all, the four-time MVP has been in the last eight NBA Finals, but he is facing a new challenge on the Los Angeles Lakers. "It's been activated," he said Wednesday when discussing the intensity needed to reach the playoffs, per Baxter Holmes of ESPN.com. The Lakers sit in 10th place in the Western Conference and are three games behind the eighth-seeded Los Angeles Clippers. This is somewhat new territory for James, 34, considering he has been in the last 13 playoffs and is often more worried about seeding following the All-Star break than whether his team will even qualify for the postseason. Los Angeles is facing an uphill battle, even with its top playmaker's intensity dialed up. Holmes noted ESPN Stats & Information projects the Lakers to have the fourth-most difficult remaining schedule in the league, which kicks off again Thursday against the formidable Houston Rockets. That James is ready to pick up the intensity should at least provide an answer to some of the team's lingering questions Joe Vardon of The Athletic reported on Monday. According to the report, some with the team are "privately a little concerned" about James' health and whether he will "pick up his intensity and propel this team back into the playoffs." James suffered a groin injury during a Christmas Day win over the Golden State Warriors when the Lakers were fourth in the Western Conference. However, he said he feels "pretty good where I'm at physically," per Holmes, which is welcome news for the Lakers after they went 6-11 from Dec. 27 through Jan. 29 when he was out. Video Play Button Videos you might like The only way the Lakers will make the playoffs is with James remaining and healthy and performing at a high level. He is apparently ready to do just that.<doc-sep>It’s time for a Good Will Hunting moment for LeBron James: It’s not your fault the Los Angeles Lakers are on their way to missing the postseason. James poured in his customary scoring + rebounds + dimes line against the Clippers on Monday night, but that wasn’t enough in yet another loss, putting the Lakers 5.5 games out of the eighth and final spot in the West. The only mistake? James might want to rethink talking about how his “playoff mode” had been activated early, which he said back on Feb. 21. Since then, the Lakers are 2-5. And that means there have been lots of jokes aimed at James on Twitter: For everyone waiting for Lebron to enter playoff mode, you’re gonna have to wait until next year. Or maybe later. — Tom Griffin (@tgriff716) March 5, 2019 @KingJames your playoff activation mode was never activated. Let me give you some advice youngster. If you have to tell everyone you're activating playoff mode, you're probably full of it. Your season averages are great for regular players but bad for a King — donalddoejr (@donalddoejr) March 5, 2019 Live look at LeBron activating playoff mode 😬 pic.twitter.com/oInEF8hC4o — Yahoo Sports (@YahooSports) March 5, 2019 We're still waiting for LeBron to enter "playoff mode" pic.twitter.com/3TYucZSMNh — The Ringer (@ringer) March 5, 2019 Lebron trying to push the Playoff Mode Activation button reminds me of Han trying to hit Light Speed in Empire Strikes Back pic.twitter.com/fwLZRgbrje — Doug Gottlieb (@GottliebShow) March 5, 2019 2-5 record since LeBron activated “Playoff Mode.” Maybe he meant “Finals Mode” — Shane Young (@YoungNBA) March 5, 2019 "Does this qualify as playoff mode activated? "… LeBron is a foot short on the free throw 😂 pic.twitter.com/eoE79Lp1ta — Binyomin Goldgrab (@bgoldgrab) March 5, 2019 Since #LeBron announced he was "engaging playoff mode," the Lakers have lost to the Pelicans (27-34) & Grizzlies (23-38). pic.twitter.com/gxu2eaNIiW — A.J. (@aj_crisp21) February 26, 2019 And… still waiting for “Playoff mode activated” Lebron pic.twitter.com/ErW1KnHBUD — KR6979 (@Kdotcom2) March 5, 2019 LeBron really said playoff mode activated then proceeds to lose to the trashiest teams in the west, what a clown — Laconic™ (@Luhconic) March 5, 2019 The Lakers have lost 9 of the last 12 games with Lebron in playoff mode. Am I confused on the meaning of “playoff mode”? — Rob Rastetter (@RobRastetter) March 5, 2019 Is it really James’s fault? The guy took a mediocre Cavaliers team — this Lakers squad, at full strength, is better on paper — and carried them all the way to an NBA Finals last year. What he’s doing at age 34 is still astounding, but that’s not something he can do again every year. Maybe he really does have to shut it down and wait for the offseason. Basketball is a team sport. It can’t be all on him.<doc-sep>LeBron James seemed pretty activated on Thursday. (Photo by Andrew D. Bernstein/NBAE via Getty Images) A day after LeBron James proclaimed he was activating his well-known higher intensity level earlier than scheduled, the Los Angeles Lakers superstar backed up his words. Despite trailing by as many as 19 points in the third quarter on Thursday, James and the Lakers unleashed a furious comeback to put away a newly healthy Houston Rockets team 111-106 and open the post-All-Star break portion of their season with a big win. LeBron James and the Lakers’ big comeback win With seven minutes left in the third quarter, the Lakers trailed 79-60 with James looking on pace for a quiet night by his standards. Nothing looked very activated. From that moment on, the Lakers uncorked a 23-11 run to close the third quarter, then outscored the Rockets 28-16 in the fourth to notch a win over the team with the fifth-best record in the Western Conference. As for James, he finished with 29 points, on 11-of-23 shooting, 11 rebounds and six assists. He also unleashed this incredible piece of violence in the third quarter: James affirmed his belief in his young team after the game. “We’ve got a fresh start for us, and this is the second half of the season,” James said in a postgame interview with TNT. “The trade deadline is over with. This is our squad. I’m happy with who we’ve got. I love our squad. And I look forward to seeing how we continue to battle for the rest of the season.” It’s hard to say how sustainable an “activated” LeBron James is when he’s 34 years old and not surrounded by as strong a supporting cast as he’s used to. However, if Thursday is any indication, the ride to the playoffs and beyond figures to be fun. More from Yahoo Sports: • Jim Boeheim unlikely to face charges after fatal accident • How Zion’s shoe mishap hurts Nike • MLB video game makes girl ‘mad and upset’ • College coach accused of stealing underwear<doc-sep>And it appears he will soon have to stomach that it’s going on his ledger in the most permanent ink that he was unable to bring a halt to the longest postseason drought in Lakers history — barring an unforeseen resurrection from a fractured group that sits four and a half games out of a Western Conference playoff berth with 19 games to go. No matter how much culpability you wish to assign James for what is poised to go down as the Lakers’ franchise-record sixth successive trip to the draft lottery, he’s going to have to own this as much as the front-office tandem of Magic Johnson and Rob Pelinka as well as the under-fire coach Luke Walton. The LeBron Way, for years and years, has worked something like this: He inevitably gets most of the credit when his team flourishes; his teammates absorb the bulk of the blame when things unravel. But this is different. This would be the jarring sight of James, fresh off his eighth consecutive finals appearance, actually missing out on the N.B.A. postseason for the first time since his second professional season in 2004-5, when he was just 20. Even though he can rightly point to his recent groin strain as the biggest standings-altering disruption these Lakers have endured, James surely understands that his maiden campaign in Los Angeles is bound to be recorded in many precincts as a failure to make the playoffs that belongs to him.<doc-sep>
All-Star Weekend, LeBron James talked about the Lakers playoff push and said it was time, “playoff mode activated.” Since then the Lakers have gone 2-6. After Monday’s loss to the Clipper in which LeBron played 42 minutes, he seemed open to the idea of a minutes reduction if the Lakers fell out of playoff contention. “Well, I mean, that’s a conversation that would probably be had between me and Luke [Walton]…” LeBron said. “We didn’t take care of business, so you kind of look at the rest of the games, and the percentages of what’s going on there in the future, and see what makes more sense not only for me but the team itself as well.” The percentages are minuscule (less than one percent according to fivethirtyeight.com), so the Lakers are going to put LeBron on a minutes limit and reduce his role, something reported by Chris Haynes of Yahoo Sports (he is well-connected with LeBron’s camp). BREAKING: @ChrisBHaynes reports Lakers will put LeBron on a minutes restriction and likely won't let him play back-to-backs. pic.twitter.com/02jI7UYIsp — Yahoo Sports (@YahooSports) March 7, 2019 LeBron will play 28-32 minutes a night and may sit out half of the three back-to-backs the Lakers have remaining, according to the report. This shouldn’t be a surprise. When LeBron came to the Lakers this was going to be a multi-year process, and they knew it. They did not have the roster to compete this year (not that anyone inside the club thought they would be five games below .500 and out of the playoffs) and they were targeting stars next summer, via trade and free agency. The goal this year was to see how the young players — Brandon Ingram, Kyle Kuzma, Lonzo Ball — fit with LeBron. That’s all still the plan. Which means thinking long term about LeBron and his health. He’s not 100 percent from the groin injury. He’s got a ridiculous amount of miles on him. Scaling back the load on him, since there is nothing on the line, is just the smart thing to do. It’s just not what the Lakers expected to be doing this time of year.