The Los Angeles Lakers are in the midst of their roughest stretch of the season so far after falling by 41 points to the Miami Heat. Anthony Davis had another rough night, but the team as a whole lacked fight, energy and effort with multiple instances of just not trying and allowing easy baskets.
The Lakers have now lost six of their last eight games with four of those losses coming by 25 points or more. Things are on the brink of spiraling completely out of control if they can’t address and fix these issues on both sides of the court.
Head coach JJ Redick spoke about the Lakers not being together right now and Davis feels the team has to figure out a way to get back to having fun on the court, via Spectrum SportsNet:
“Just get back to having fun. Have fun on the floor. Just got to find a way, to be honest. Just find a way in Atlanta to get the win. But I don’t know, to be honest.”
The concern for the Lakers is this continuing to go downhill and completely ruining this season as a whole. Davis still believes in the fight of this team, saying that everyone on the roster hates losing, and feels they must stick together to get through this rough stretch:
“I don’t know if it’s been a snowball, but I know everyone in this locker room hates losing. I know everyone in this locker room tries to do the right thing. We don’t go out and purposely try to mess up or have a breakdown in the coverage or miss a shot or not execute a play. We’re gonna make mistakes, it happens in a game. But we got to limit those mistakes. We’re having so many on both ends of the floor and it’s not helping us. So we gotta do whatever it takes to get a win on Friday, but we can’t separate. We gotta stay together as a team, as a unit and make sure that thing doesn’t turn into something that we don’t want. I got the utmost confidence in this group and this coaching staff. But like I said, I personally just think it starts with me. If I play better then guys play better. I’m definitely taking accountability, especially the last couple games just not being there for the team on the offensive end.”
Davis undoubtedly needs to get back to his level of play offensively, but these issues stretch far deeper than any individual player or coach. These are the times when we find out what a team is truly made of because it is very easy to continue to separate, fall apart, and let this season go to waste. But if this team is built like Davis believes it is, these Lakers will come together and pull themselves out of this mess.
LeBron James believes Lakers issues are on players, not coaches
There is plenty of blame to go around with how poorly the Lakers have played, but LeBron James made his beliefs clear that the team’s issues falls squarely on the players.
James said that there are no schemes that can fix the Lakers’ lack of effort and energy and that these are things that have been preached since the summer. LeBron added that it is ‘definitely’ on the players and not on the coaches at all.
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