The Los Angeles Lakers were beaten by the Brooklyn Nets 111-108. This as LeBron James is out of action because his groin is injured. The basketball legend is out for atleast one to two weeks.
The result crushed Los Angeles Lakers fans as they were left disappointed. Luka came in 22 points, a total of 12 assists and the same number of rebounds. This was his second such performance since he had joined the team. However, without James, the Nets were able to outplay the Lakers. The Nets managed to crush the competition and win the day.
This of course, is not a huge shocker given the background and situation. Basketball is after all a team sport. One player, no matter how good, can never pull if off alone on his own if he does not have the team pulling their weight too.
Working together as a team means having the right rhythm and timing. This team effort was not seen in the Lakers performance. The Lakers had been relying on their star players and doing a great job with the combination of LeBron James and Luka. However, as soon as the duo was out of action with one person not being able to play due to injury, instantly the team fell apart.
Also, Lukam Dlaton Knecht, Alex Len, and Gabe Vincent had never played together for a single game. This clearly showed as the team was out of sync and proper teamwork was lacking in this match.
Moreover, LeBron James is not the only star player who was missing in action. They also did not have Rui Hachimura and Dorian Smith. What is more Jaxon Hayes was beginning to settle down slowly.
However, the coach of the Los Angeles Lakers took it on the chin and did not come up with any excuses for the lack of performance.
JJ the coach said on the performance of the team that it was a “very low-level communication game” and said “being shorthanded is [not] an excuse for how we played basketball tonight.”
“I think it was just an overall mentality to take shortcuts tonight,” Redick went on to say. “They scored 20 points on us gambling [defensively]. They had 16 offensive rebounds. We ball-watched all night. They probably made six or seven uncontested 3s. Just shortcuts. You want to be a good team, you want to win in the NBA, you got to do the hard stuff.
“We couldn’t even pass to each other,” Redick continued as he became visibly frustrated. “We couldn’t enter our offense. Running ball screens literally at half court … I don’t know what we were doing.”
“Very low-level communication game for our team… I don’t think being short-handed is an excuse for how we played basketball tonight.”
“[We] should’ve made better decisions,” Dončić went on to say. “I think we started the game doing a really good job, good decisions. But then we just kind of let go of the rope. We got comfortable.”
This would’ve been a big night for Reaves to step up in James’ absence but he was off as well, finishing 3 for 14 and 1 for 5 from 3.
“I just thought I played incredibly bad,” Reaves said. “When Bron’s out, I’ve got to be better, and I wasn’t, and that’s one of the reasons we lost.”
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The Lakers losing does not mean that the Nets had it easy though. They played hard and played to win. Even though they had been having a pretty bad time against the Los Angeles Lakers they played well. However, the Lakers are rightly not taking it as an excuse to lose.
The Lakers star player is out for not just one match. Also, the Los Angeles Lakers have been having a pretty hard time and they will continue to. The next six games that they are going to play are 2 against Milwaukee and one each against Phoenix and San AntTONIO and two against Denver.
How they manage to play withtout their star player remains to be seen. The Los Angeles Lakers are saying that they will recover from the and be stronger than ever. Let us what happens.
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