Saturday night saw the Los Angeles Lakers suffer a brutal loss to the Denver Nuggets. After leading for a majority of the first half, the team crumbled in the third quarter, getting outscored 37-15 and losing the second half 70-39. It’s difficult to find a Laker that had a decent night, as nobody reached 20 points and starters like Rui Hachimura were a minus-13 in 22 minutes.
In the aftermath of the loss, the Lakers tried to figure out exactly what it was that caused such a significant collapse. JJ Redick pointed to defense, Anthony Davis pointed to missed shots and some pointed out that perhaps the Lakers have lost faith that they are capable of beating the Nuggets at all.
Hachimura’s stance though, is far more digestible. He believes the lakers got complacent after a good first half and need to figure out how to avoid that in the future.
“I think we just kind of relaxed. … I think we were in a good rhythm and then we kind of relaxed for some reason. And the third quarter, yeah, like they just, they knew, and they just played hard. We didn’t fight back. And yeah, that was the game,” Hachimura said.
The Lakers certainly did not fight back after the Nuggets’ original punch in the third quarter. And the Nuggets kept punching without a response. But that is a drastic example of how the Lakers have fared against Denver over the last two years.
L.A. shows some early fight, and the Nuggets find a punch in the second half that the Lakers don’t have a response to. Now, they need to get back to the drawing board and figure out why, as getting through Denver is still likely to be a requirement if they want to contend in a crowded Western Conference.
Anthony Davis says frustration got to Lakers
Anthony Davis believed that the ease at which the Nuggets were scoring led to the Lakers’ frustration in the third quarter.
“I think it was just the frustration part. I mean, we were giving up so many backdoors to start the third, open 3s. Our defense on Michael Porter coming off, we were getting screened and he was making shots.
“When you play so well in the first half and then we come out like we did in that third quarter, giving up backdoors and 3s that were wide open, it’s definitely deflating. It’s not our defense. Then to combat that you go down and can’t make a shot so when it rains, it pours. We just got to be better on both ends of the floor.”
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