The Los Angeles Lakers held a six-point lead at halftime of their contest against the Brooklyn Nets on Friday night. It felt like the Lakers should have been up by much more and they would have been had it not been for the performance of Nets reserve guard Cam Thomas.
Thomas scored 20 of his 33 points in the first half, almost singlehandedly keeping the Nets within striking distance early. And it paid off as the rest of the Nets caught fire in the second half, allowing Brooklyn to overtake and run away from the Lakers late, handing them an 18-point loss.
For Thomas, however, it meant a little bit more to have a game like this against his favorite team growing up.
“It’s always good to play against the Lakers,” Thomas said after the game. “Not really so who’s on the team, but more so like I grew up being a Lakers fan. Like a diehard Lakers fan, Kobe fan.
“So it’s always good to come in here and have a good game or play against them and have a good game. It always means a little something to me to have a good game where I used to be a fan at. So it was good.”
Thomas was actually born in Japan where the Lakers and Kobe Bryant have a massive fan base, so his fandom makes a lot of sense. Of course, in the case of Kobe, being a fan of the Lakers legend would make sense regardless of where someone grew up, such was the impact he had around the world.
And this was a performance Bryant would have respected as Thomas made it happen from all three levels. He hit four 3-pointers, but also had a number of tough finishes in the paint over the Lakers big men, as well as a number of tough midrange jumpers.
The Lakers always seem to bring out the best in the opposition as it just means a little more to have a strong performance against the NBA’s most prestigious franchise. Unfortunately, the Lakers themselves need to do a better job of preventing these types of outings from happening regularly.
LeBron James feels Lakers failure to get stops affected their energy
It wasn’t just Thomas the Lakers couldn’t stop as they failed to contain any Nets players in the second half of their loss. And LeBron James feels it was that failure to get stops that negatively affected the team’s energy.
“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.”
Whether it was their defensive or offensive issues, the body language of the Lakers down the stretch was extremely concerning.
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