In a season full of under-performances and disappointing losses, the Los Angeles Lakers may very well have reached a new low. Against an extremely short-handed Portland Trail Blazers team, the Lakers somehow came up short 107-105 and Frank Vogel’s team is now left scrambling for answers.
Portland was without Damian Lillard and recently traded away CJ McCollum, Norman Powell, Larry Nance Jr. and Robert Covington. Even some of the players they received back were not available, but it didn’t matter as the Lakers produced a sloppy, listless performance.
After the game, Frank Vogel expressed his disappointment in the outcome of the contest but says the Lakers will simply continue to work to improve.
“We just got to play with better habits,” Vogel said. “That’s what we talked about, we watched film on it this morning from the Milwaukee game, the habits of this team haven’t been executed at a high enough level to win at the level that we want to win it. We’ll keep hitting them on it, we’ll keep working, watch the tape again and try to learn from this one and continue to have that growth mindset.”
The Lakers hit 17 3-pointers on the night but failed mightily in nearly every other important factor. They allowed 58 points in the paint, 28 fastbreak points and turned the ball over 21 times. They also allowed 11 Portland offensive rebounds and hit just six of their 13 free throw attempts.
A lot of these things are issues the Lakers have struggled with all season long and Vogel pointed to the failure to execute and turn around these bad habits as reasons why the Lakers have failed to meet expectations.
“Habits are habits. You work on habits and it takes time for them to develop to the point where you’re doing them every time without thought. The faster teams that build those habits, those are the teams that win. We haven’t gotten them done at a high enough level. So every loss is different, ev ery one feels different, and this one is definitely disappointing.
Coming into the season there was always a concern as to whether this Lakers team could truly fit together and make things work, but no one could have predicted how bad things would turn out. Regardless of who is in or out of the lineup, the players and Vogel have been unable to figure out the right combination to meet championship expectations.
There is very little time remaining for the Lakers to salvage this season and it remains unclear whether there is actually anything that Vogel, LeBron James, Anthony Davis or anyone else can do to turn things around.
Vogel disappointed in loss
Vogel did not have a whole lot to say after the loss to the Trail Blazers, although he expressed disappointment and said they will watch film to figure out what went wrong.
“I feel like we can win. I feel like we should’ve won this game and disappointed that we didn’t and we’ll get back to work and find out why we didn’t win.”
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