The Los Angeles Lakers suffered their first loss of the regular season as they fell to the Phoenix Suns 109-105 on the first night of their five-game road trip. Many Lakers struggled on the night, including LeBron James, who shot just 3-of-14 and finished with 11 points.
James did add eight assists and five rebounds while also adding a huge clutch 3-pointer to give the Lakers a chance late. The ball was in his hands with a chance to tie, but the Suns would foul him before he could get a shot up and an intentionally missed free throw didn’t bounce the Lakers’ way.
But even though the game ended in a loss, LeBron was still happy with a lot of things the Lakers did while acknowledging where they failed and can improve, via Spectrum SportsNet:
“Wins and losses are inevitable in this league. How you play and how you continue to play each and every game is what defines what type of team you want to be. Even with the loss tonight, I think we did some great things and some things we could be better at, obviously. We had a 14-point second quarter that got them back in the game. We started the fourth quarter up seven and we let them get right back into the game, so we could be a lot better there. But we did a lot of good things.”
Now, the Lakers are facing their first bit of adversity in this early season and they must bounce back and get in the win column. LeBron understands how dangerous it is if these losses start piling up and is determined to make sure that doesn’t happen:
“You just want to be able to bounce back and not let the snowball turn into an avalanche obviously when it comes to the loss column. So we’re in the process, still getting to know ourselves and getting to know each other out there on the floor. But we want to be able to not let losses come in bunches. So we look forward to our next matchup.”
That won’t be an easy task as the Lakers face the undefeated Cleveland Cavaliers next, who have been one of the most impressive teams in the entire NBA through the first week of the season. Having to take down Donovan Mitchell and company on the road is difficult, but that is the job that needs to be done and LeBron, Anthony Davis and the rest of the Lakers must figure out a way to make it happen.
Lakers’ LeBron James discusses how he benefits from attention Anthony Davis receives
While LeBron James struggled against the Suns, the same can’t be said for Anthony Davis who continued his dominant start to the season. His level of play ultimately makes things easier for LeBron overall and the superstar recently spoke about it.
“In every way, shape and facet. He commands so much attention,” James said. “Defensively, he continues to dominate defensive rebounds at a high level. When we get to our switching groups, he can switch out on the perimeter and make it tough on them. Offensively, we can find him on mismatches. A lot of teams in our league like to switch guards onto bigs. We have one guy you can’t really switch a guard onto. That creates mismatches. We encourage, coaches encourage him, to shoot that three ball. Probably the biggest shot of the night is him making that three tonight. That made it easy on me. All I got to do is get it on time and on target.”
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