LeBron James: Lakers 'Understood the Assignment' in Win vs. Patrick Beverley, Bulls

LeBron James wasn't going to let the Los Angeles Lakers get embarrassed by Patrick Beverley and the Chicago Bulls again.

"We understood the assignment," he told reporters following Wednesday's 121-110 win. "Every road trip is huge, but because of our season and the way things have gone, this is the biggest road trip for us in this moment."

The Lakers can ill afford to lose any ground in the Western Conference playoff race. At 38-38, they're sitting eighth and trail the sixth-place Golden State Warriors by just 1.5 games. They also only have a 1.5-game cushion on the 11th-place Dallas Mavericks.

Los Angeles could plausibly climb out of the play-in tournament and advance to the postseason outright or fall out of a play-in position altogether.

James was clearly alluding to that with his postgame press conference. He and his teammates probably had some added motivation against Chicago as well.

Ahead of his return to L.A., Beverley either took a shot at his old team or executed some of the best-branded content ever when he posted a picture holding Charmin Ultra Soft toilet paper.

The Bulls proceeded to earn a 118-108 win over the Lakers, and Beverley even got to drop the "too small" taunt on James as Chicago sealed the result in the fourth quarter.

For LeBron and his teammates, slipping two games below .500 would've been bad enough. Allowing Beverley to have the last laugh as the Bulls and Lakers closed out their season series would've made it even worse.