The Los Angeles Lakers had the opportunity to build momentum on Friday night against a Brooklyn Nets team that came in having lost nine of their last 10 games. But after a strong start, things went downhill as despite the offensive efforts of Anthony Davis, LeBron James and D’Angelo Russell, the Lakers’ defense completely fell off a cliff.
The Lakers gave up at least 30 points in each of the last three quarters, allowed the Nets to knock down 19 3-pointers with seven Brooklyn players scoring in double-figures as the Lakers fell 130-112. The Lakers were outscored 68-44 in the second half as the wheels completely fell off.
As things continued to spiral in the second half the energy and body language of the Lakers was not promising and head coach Darvin Ham felt the Lakers’ inability to make shots affected them negatively. James, on the other hand, felt it was the Lakers’ defensive struggles that brought them down.
“Nah, I thought us not getting stops affected our energy, personally,” LeBron said after the loss. “You can’t trade baskets or when we missed, we’re not getting those stops. We got to get stops and we weren’t getting stops. Like I said, we gave up 38 in the third.”
The Lakers have had issues on both sides of the court at different times this season, but it is the defense that is meant to carry this team and as LeBron noted, they failed to get it done.
As things began to get out of hand, the Lakers were unable to answer offensively. But James did make note that it wasn’t because the Lakers were settling, they simply missed a bunch of easy shots they normally wouldn’t.
“No, when you’re trying to get it all back, that’s when you shoot a bunch of jump shots,” LeBron added. “We was living in the paint, we were just missing layups.”
Many of those layups came at the hands of James himself as he shot just 9-of-22 from the field and missed a number of shots at the rim. But LeBron and the Lakers will now have to put this loss behind them and the Lakers star has a plan to do just that.
“Watch NFL playoffs tomorrow. That’s what I’ll do,” he said.
Hopefully some football will give him and the Lakers the inspiration needed to make a real push over these final few months of the season.
LeBron James calls it ‘disrespectful’ to Lakers teammates to talk potential trade deadline deals
After a performance like what happened against the Nets, there is bound to be more talk about potential deals the Lakers could make with the trade deadline approaching. But James doesn’t plan on engaging in any of that.
“I don’t play fantasy basketball. What I do is focus on the guys that’s here in this uniform and show up to work every day. It’s too disrespectful to be thinking about what we need or what we don’t have. I don’t do that to my teammates,” James said. “We’ve been putting in the work and that’s what we got to continue to do.”
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