The Los Angeles Lakers continued to struggle against the NBA’s top teams when they suffered a blowout loss to the Boston Celtics on Sunday. L.A. was outscored 83-61 in the final three quarters to suffer a 22-point defeat to their long-time arch-rivals in a performance where nobody played particularly well.
Luka Doncic had 25 points on 9-of-22 from the field, LeBron James had 20 on 9-of-21 and Austin Reaves had 15 on 4-of-10 shooting. The Lakers shot 39% from the field as a unit and were out-rebounded and out-assisted. It was another poor effort against a team that is among the league’s elite, a consistent theme for L.A. this season.
And perhaps no one was more upset about the showing than Lakers legend and Spectrum SportsNet studio analyst James Worthy. He panned the Lakers for the way they showed up in the game, especially against such an important rival like the Celtics, via NBA Courtside:
James Worthy RIPS the Lakers after their loss to the Celtics 😬
“No heart, weak… This afternoon, was weak. It’s the Boston Celtics… To me, No respect for the uniform. You come out and get out rebounded, Pritchard and Jaylen Brown, you can sniff out weakness. When you do that,… pic.twitter.com/KZVLpWsJD1
— NBA Courtside (@NBA__Courtside) February 23, 2026
Worthy verbalizes what many fans have felt about the Lakers for much of this season. They put on great performances when facing the league’s worst teams, but seem to consistently lay eggs when playing against good opponents. They rarely just get outplayed, they get outworked and blown out by any team that is seriously contending for a top playoff spot.
The Lakers have played 13 games against teams currently in the top four of each conference. They are 2-11 in those games with 10 of the losses coming by 10 or more points. At a certain point, those results can no longer be ignored in favor of the good results against bad teams, and Worthy was sure to recognize that.
Luka Doncic discusses how Lakers can match physicality
Doncic had 25 points in the loss, but acknowledged that he and the team need to be better offensively despite any increased physicality.
“I think they were physical. They were playing great defense. So we need better offense,” Doncic said after the loss. “We scored 89 points. That’s not like us, so we got to be better.”
Doncic emphasized that the only way to handle physicality is to meet it head on with more of it.
“You’ve just got to match the physicality on both ends, especially on the defensive end. You got to match the physicality,” he said.
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