The Los Angeles Lakers came into Chicago looking for revenge against the Bulls and were well on their way to achieving that goal. But the Bulls caught fire in the fourth quarter and Josh Giddey hit an unbelievable half-court shot at the buzzer to lift his team to a shocking victory.
It was a heartbreaking loss for the Lakers who were on the second night of a back-to-back, and Luka Doncic admitted it was hard to lose in that fashion, via Spectrum SportsNet:
“It’s hard. To lose like that, we basically had the game in hand and when you lose like that, it’s hard. Especially on a back-to-back when I think we fought hard. It’s hard to lose like that.”
A loss at the buzzer like that is a very tough pill to swallow, especially when the Lakers had the game in hand. But Doncic also knows the Lakers can’t afford to dwell on it as they have another game coming in a couple days:
“I don’t think it’s about feeling sorry for ourselves for the way we lost. Like I said, we had the game in hand. So it’s just the way we lost, but that’s sometimes a good thing and sometimes a bad thing that in the NBA, in one or two days you have the next game.”
The Lakers will finish off their four-game road trip on Saturday against the Memphis Grizzlies, who will now have a new coach for that contest after parting ways with Taylor Jenkins. Simply put, the Lakers can’t afford to allow this loss to stick with them and Doncic knows the feeling after having dealt with a similar loss last season:
“Depends on the game. I mean, it’s like the one I had in Cleveland last year, which was an even crazier shot. It was three-quarters, so just gotta process it. It’s a tough way to lose, but it is what it is.”
The game Doncic is referring to is when the Cleveland Cavaliers beat the Dallas Mavericks on a shot by Max Strus from beyond half-court.
CAVS GAME WINNER FROM HALF COURT 😱
WILD ENDING IN CLEVELAND 🤯 pic.twitter.com/80xSb9W7xY
— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) February 28, 2024
Because Doncic has been in a similar situation before, he remains confident in the Lakers’ ability to beat anyone as long as they put a full 48 minutes together:
“Yeah, I mean, like I said, our third quarter was good. So today, I think we had to show that our third quarters need to be better but then we relaxed in the third quarter. So we just gotta play the game for 48 minutes. If we play all 48 minutes with the same energy, we’re hard to beat.”
The Lakers still have nine games to get things together before the playoffs begin and if they can’t, their postseason hopes will flame out very early.
Lakers’ Luka Doncic still has ‘a lot of work to do’ to mesh with Austin Reaves & LeBron James
The trio of Luka Doncic, LeBron James and Austin Reaves has shown flashes of what they are capable of, especially offensively, when they are all clicking on the same page. But Luka still feels he is in the process of learning his new teammates.
Doncic says he still has ‘a lot of work to do’ in figuring out LeBron and Reaves and fully understanding what they like on the court. Luka added that it will still take some time, but he plans on looking at film to better help him adapt.
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