Lakers news: Wildfire relief, rescheduled games, LeBron on New Heights

Due to the combined effects of a poor stretch of play and the ongoing California wildfires, the Los Angeles Lakers went 12 days between victories, finally ending their drought with a 117-108 win over the Miami Heat on Wednesday night.

There have been numerous instances this season of the Lakers falling behind at halftime and then getting blown out in the second half, but this time JJ Redick's team flipped the script, as they erased a 12-point halftime deficit thanks to a group effort that included 14 assists from Austin Reaves and Rui Hachimura leading the team in points for the first time all season with 23.

Both emotionally and in terms of keeping a leg up on their competition, the Lakers badly needed this win. The Western Conference standings are tighter than ever, and though the Lakers currently hold the sixth seed with their 21-17 record, there are six teams within 2.5 games of catching them.

This game against the Heat, especially because it resulted in a win, provided a welcome distraction to everything else that's been going on in California lately. As we get into our news of the week, let's begin there.

Lakers band together with other L.A. teams to aid in wildfire relief efforts

The amount of loss experienced by Los Angelenos due to the wildfires is immeasurable, but the local sports teams are doing what they can to help in the recovery. The Lakers, combined with 11 other teams, have pledged more than $8 million in donations that will go toward Los Angeles residents that have been impacted by the fires.

Many people online have slammed the $8 million donation for being such a small number relative to what each team, especially the Dodgers and Lakers, is worth. People online are mad at everything though, and this is far from the only effort being done by the Los Angeles sports scene to help those in need.

The Lakers, for instance, also have been holding a weeklong donation drive for victims of the fires, while World Series MVP Freddie Freeman and his wife Chelsea are personally donating $300,000 to the Los Angeles Fire Department, the Pasadena Fire Department and the Salvation Army. The recovery from such a devastating natural disaster will take years, and there will undoubtedly be much more that the local teams and athletes do beyond this initial gesture.

NBA begins to reschedule games postponed due to the California wildfires

The Lakers had two home games postponed last week due to the immediate danger posed by the fires. On Wednesday, the NBA announced that the first of those had been rescheduled.

The Hornets were supposed to visit Crypto.com Arena on Thursday, Jan. 9. Instead, that game will now take place on Wednesday, Feb. 19 in what will now be the Lakers' first game following the All-Star Break. It will form the first half of a back-to-back, with the other game being a road game at Portland the following day.

The Lakers were also scheduled to take on the Spurs on Saturday, January 11. That game has not yet been rescheduled, though it is expected to have a new date soon. The NBA did however move the Jazz-Lakers game on Tuesday, Feb. 11 up a day to Monday, Feb. 10 to allow for other games to also be rescheduled. This now gives L.A. and Utah a day between their home-and-home before the All-Star Break.

LeBron James appears on the New Heights podcast with Jason and Travis Kelce

Athlete-hosted podcasts have become all the rage, and one of the most consistently entertaining and popular ones is New Heights, which is hosted by the football-playing brotherly tandem of Jason and Travis Kelce. Just like LeBron, the Kelces hail originally from Northeast Ohio, and they finally had fellow native Ohioan King James on the show on Wednesday.

Lakers fans should definitely check the 73-minute podcast out, as the conversation went to some interesting places. Among the many topics covered after Jason replicated LeBron's "chalk in the air" intro were whether LeBron ever seriously considered playing in the NFL, the time he played pickup basketball against Michael Jordan as a 16-year-old, what it's really like being on the same team as Bronny and LeBron's hilarious thoughts on the infamous NSFW tweet that celebrated his imminent basketball demise 10 years ago.

LeBron is no stranger to the podcast game, as he co-hosted Mind the Game with his future head coach JJ Redick earlier this year. When Redick accepted the Lakers head coaching position, Mind the Game was ended after just nine episodes, as was Redick's other podcast, The Old Man & the Three.