After one of their worst performances of the season, many were hoping to see the Los Angeles Lakers bounce back in a big way on Monday night against the Orlando Magic. But despite 56 points combined from Luka Doncic and LeBron James, the Lakers again came up short as they fell 118-106 in Orlando to kick off their road trip.
The Lakers offense looked out of sync while their defense wasn’t clicking either and overall the team’s energy just simply wasn’t there. When things are going tough, the onus is usually on a team’s leader to step up and pull the team out of the mud. Most would consider LeBron the leader of the Lakers, even while conceding the best player title to Doncic, but Luka feels he needs to be better in his leadership role as well.
Following the loss to the Magic, Doncic spoke on his role as a leader with the Lakers, feeling he needs to talk more and the team as a whole must be more physical, via Spectrum SportsNet:
“First we gotta get into the playoffs. There’s nothing guaranteed in this league. But I gotta talk more, get everybody in position, try and be a good leader. I’m getting more comfortable talking more and more. We gotta talk more and the last thing is we gotta be more physical on both ends.”
Doncic would continue on, noting that while he and James are the ones everyone will look to, anyone on the team should be able to speak up when they feel it necessary:
“I honestly think it should be not just one person, it should be everybody. Everybody should be able to. Obviously now it’s gonna be everybody, but I think me and Bron. I think we should be the guys to do that and that’s on me. Obviously I gotta do better, I gotta talk more. I think I talked in the first half and then just kind of slowed down. I shouldn’t do that.”
Leadership can come from a number of places, but all eyes will always turn towards a team’s best player when things get tough and Doncic understands and embraces that. This team is still getting to know each other in a lot of ways, but during this final stretch they have to come together and Luka stepping up his communication and helping get this team back on one page would be huge as the playoffs near.
Luka Doncic believes Lakers are in a ‘great spot’
Of course, the Lakers had hoped for a nice bounce back game on Monday night after a disappointing outing in their prior contest against the Bulls. Following that loss, Doncic made it clear that he still feels the Lakers are in a great spot overall coming into the home stretch of the regular season.
“I think we’re in a great spot. Obviously, today wasn’t a good game for us,” Doncic admitted. “But I think we are in a great spot, and we have to battle every game to not get in the Play-In [Tournament] and try to get the highest seed we can.”
Now with a second straight bad loss, Doncic and the Lakers will need to really fight to turn things around before this great spot turns into a bad one.
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