A 29-point loss at Minnesota on Monday. A 41-point loss at Miami on Wednesday.
Add all of it up, and also you get the worst two-game stretch in Los Angeles Lakers historical past.
The Lakers misplaced to the Heat 134-93 on Wednesday, a loss that got here two days after a 109-80 loss to the Timberwolves. The 70-point margin is a file two-game low for the Lakers; they have been outscored by 67 in two separate two-game stretches of the 2016-17 season.
“It sucks, for certain, getting hit like that twice in a row,” Lakers star LeBron James mentioned. “For certain.”
The Lakers reeled off a six-game profitable streak final month to go 10-4. They are 2-6 since then, with 4 of these losses coming by 25 or extra factors. Wednesday was the low level; the 41-point loss was not solely the worst of the season, however marked solely the eleventh time in Lakers historical past – greater than 6,800 video games, together with playoffs – that they misplaced by greater than 40 factors.
“I’m embarrassed,” Lakers coach JJ Redick mentioned. “We’re all embarrassed.”
Redick is now 12-10 in his first yr as coach, and this stretch has clearly been his most troublesome but. In his postgame feedback Wednesday, he vacillated between pointing the finger at himself — “I’ll take all of the possession on the earth. This is my group and I’m main it,” he mentioned — and saying the group has issues with the only elements of the sport plan.
“I do not really feel like we’re ‘collectively’ proper now,” Redick mentioned. “And that is what we are saying once we get collectively. It does not really feel like that. It does not really feel like that. We’re in a troublesome spot and we’re all looking for it.”
Miami outscored the Lakers 72-15 from 3-point vary — that 57-point differential that ties the fourth-largest in NBA historical past.
“We’re having issues proper now on either side with related parts of the base-level gameplan,” Redick mentioned. “It’s unusual. It’s very unusual.”
Anthony Davis scored a season-high 12 factors for the Lakers on Monday. He was 4 factors worse on 3-for-14 taking pictures Wednesday.
“The guys are doing their half. I’m not doing mine, which is simply robust on our group,” Davis mentioned. “I simply must play higher individually on each ends. I maintain myself to a better normal and I did not do what I wanted to do, particularly offensively for our group.”
James mentioned he agreed with every part Redick mentioned, and Davis even echoed a phrase his coach used a number of instances.
“Embarrassing,” Davis mentioned.
James hopes the remainder of the Lakers’ locker room takes on the identical degree of duty. He insisted that 22 years within the league have taught him to not attain too excessive when issues are good or too low when issues are unhealthy.
But back-to-back video games like this characterize one thing he is by no means needed to take care of. The Lakers play at Atlanta on Friday, return residence to face Portland on Sunday after which take just a few days off – the NBA Cup quarterfinals on December 10 and 11 they’re an intrinsic break for the groups that didn’t attain the knockout stage of that event: they’ll practice and search for options.
“When you are individually (tousled) and making an attempt to depend on everybody else to cowl for you, I believe it begins with the person first,” James mentioned. “We all must take duty.”
Associated Press reporting.
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