The Los Angeles Lakers met their familiar foe the Denver Nuggets on Saturday at Crypto.com Arena with the hopes of a new season and head coach making a difference. In the first half, Austin Reaves came out firing and played a factor in L.A. getting a double-digit lead.
Unfortunately, the second half was a completely different Lakers team as they looked mentally checked out. Their offense grew stagnant and went away from what was working, which Denver took advantage of, a common script in the Nuggets’ last 13 wins against the Lakers.
Now, it feels like that six-game winning streak was a distant memory with two consecutive deflating losses. However, Reaves tried to paint a positive outlook as the team is still four games above .500.
“What are we, 10-6? We’re still in a good spot, good spirits,” he said. “I know you’re going to, unfortunately, have games like this. Games like the last game. There’s a lot of [games], 82 games is a lot of games. Like I said, unfortunately, we’re going to have some like this and [some like] the last game. You just have to bounce back and go compete as hard as you can the next game.”
While the purple and gold got off to a better start than expected, there is little room for error in a compact Western Conference. Currently, 12 teams are .500 are better, and although it may not stay that way, it demonstrates how many competitive teams there are.
Winning does cure all, but that winning streak seemed to mask all of the Lakers’ flaws, especially defensively. Against the New Orleans Pelicans and Orlando Magic, L.A. struggled mightily to finish possessions with rebounds. That was the case again on Saturday as Denver crashed and got out in transition.
Head coach JJ Redick needs to try and find an immediate fix with this current roster. Trades are needed to raise the ceiling of this team, but Redick needs to bring out a more competitive edge from his players for a full 48 minutes. If not, this upcoming stretch for the Lakers could get ugly.
Austin Reaves has blunt assessment of Lakers loss to Nuggets
It is hard to simply gloss over Saturday’s loss and move onto the next one, given how the Nuggets have beaten them 13 out of the last 14 meetings. Luckily, this serves as a chance to self reflect less than 20 games into the season.
Nothing went right in the second half, leading Austin Reaves to give his blunt assessment of how the Lakers played against Denver.
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