The Los Angeles Lakers looked to continue their winning streak when they kicked off their road trip against a shorthanded Atlanta Hawks squad on Saturday night.
The Hawks entered the night missing several of their regulars, including star guard Trae Young who has been sidelined with a knee injury. With Atlanta also having played the night before, Los Angeles was set up nicely to add another game to their win streak.
Unfortunately, the Lakers laid a dud and wound up getting blown out by the Hawks in their poorest performance of the season to date.
Jake LaRavia was just one of the players on L.A. who had a rough night and he broke down where he thought the team fell short, starting with the beginning of the game, via Spectrum SportsNet:
“It’s always up to that first group to come out and kick of set the tone and I just don’t think we really did that today. We kind of came out and got punched in our mouth and din’t really have an answer for it. They just outplayed us at the end of the day. We struggled defensively, we had some turnovers that were not really good and they were scoring off the turnovers, which obviously doesn’t help. But at the end of the day, it’s just really up to that first group to come out and set the tone and we just gotta do a better job of that.”
LaRavia didn’t feel the Lakers underestimated the Hawks, but he also didn’t feel they were executing from the jump:
“No… We knew they had guys out but I don’t think we’re every going into a game underestimating the team that we’re playing against. We knew they were gonna come out and play hard. We kind of knew what their game plan was gonna be, we just didn’t come out and execute what ours was supposed to be.”
Over the course of an 82-game season, teams are prone to having at least one game where nothing goes right so perhaps this loss is just that for the Lakers. Los Angeles had been stringing together strong two-way efforts, so this game against Atlanta feels like a blip on the radar, which LaRavia emphasized will be the case:
“You just gotta learn from it and move on. You gotta understand that this isn’t the identity of this team. This game was an outlier of the first 10 games we played and just to not let it break us, we’re gonna come right back the next game and be ready to play.”
Regardless, the Lakers need to respond and fortunately they get a good opportunity to bounce back on Monday against the Charlotte Hornets.
JJ Redick says Deandre Ayton is showing he’s a winning player with Lakers
Deandre Ayton was one of the other starters in the loss to the Hawks who could have performed better, though JJ Redick had high praise for the center. Redick said Ayton is showing the NBA that he’s a winning player on the Lakers after a few great two-way performances.
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