LeBron James on Dillon Brooks - 'I don't need to make statements'

LOS ANGELES — LeBron James might have given Dillon Brooks an earful before the Lakers' 111-101 Game 3 win over the Memphis Grizzlies on Saturday, but come tipoff, it was business as usual — a team player executing a game plan to try to win a basketball game.

«I've been doing this too long. I've made enough statements,» James said when asked if he was trying to make a point with his play. «No. We had an opportunity to come home and play well on our home floor, and we did that. No statement was made. We just wanted to play well and got a win. And we want to try to do that in Game 4, as well.

»But I don't need to make statements."

The No. 7-seeded Lakers took a 2-1 lead on the second-seeded Grizzlies in their Western Conference first-round series.

James finished with 25 points on 10-for-20 shooting, nine rebounds and five assists, and he added a double-clutch reverse dunk on a breakaway in the second half — the type of play that's argument enough against Brooks' assertion that James looks «old,» without needing to say anything about it in a news conference.

During pregame warmups, James did confront Brooks on the court with fans in the stands and cameras rolling all around them. While the Lakers didn't reveal what was said, James said he had no problem with everyone who witnessed it drawing their own conclusions.

«There was nothing private about it,» James said of the pregame exchange. «It was very, very public. I like it that way.»

What James, a 20-year veteran, said he doesn't appreciate as much is the seemingly constant stream of agitators who have tried to rattle him — from DeShawn Stevenson to Joakim Noah, Lance Stephenson to Jason Terry, Paul Pierce to Draymond Green.

«This is not my first rodeo,» James said. «I've