LeBron James had no reason to hide the undeniable truth: the Los Angeles Lakers, who have lost 10 of their last 13 games, including four in a row, are a bad basketball team.
“We’re just miserable right now,” LeBron said after another loss – 127-113 to the Memphis Grizzlies.
LeBron scored 32 points (11-of-24 shooting), five rebounds, seven assists and five steals in 39 minutes, although his fourth quarter was marred by missed free throws and carelessness. The Lakers, who were arguably the best basketball team at the start of the season, entered the fourth quarter with the Grizzlies tied 94-94, but outscored 33-19 in the period.
Anthony Davis scored 31 points on 13-for-22 shooting, while Austin Reaves added 19 points, seven rebounds and 12 assists. Memphis, which was last in the NBA in three-point shooting percentage on Friday, hit 23 threes in 45 attempts and took advantage of the Lakers’ tendency to get close on dribble drives. Marcus Smart, who started the day shooting 26.3 percent, hit 9 of 14 shots from the field. Jaren Jackson Jr, who is shooting 33.3% on the season, hit 5-for-6.
“As players, we have to do a better job of making an impact and missing shots,” Reaves said.
The Lakers, who put the pressure on themselves to turn things around after a grueling and travel-laden December, lost by 14 points in two home games in the new year – against the Jimmy Butler-less Miami Heat and the 12-23 Grizzlies this month.
“That was a tough part of the season for us,” AD said. “We’re going in the wrong direction right now. The last thing we need is to separate and fall apart. We definitely need to stay together. We need to figure out what it is. We must not be in our feelings. We must not complain. We must not take anything personally. We have to look individually, myself, everybody in the locker room, the coaching staff, look in the mirror and see what we can do better individually to help the team be better.”
The Lakers’ weakening Darvin Ham is even more on the chopping block. On Friday, the second-year head coach emphatically dismissed reports related to his job security at a pregame press conference that showed growing discontent in the locker room (Ham compared unnamed sources to witnesses testifying against the Mafia, citing an episode of 60 Minutes he remembers from his childhood). Ham insisted that he had the support of the Lakers’ management – even if it was before yet another defeat, which ended with boisterous screams from the exiting crowd.
All the confidence the Lakers had gained from winning the Las Vegas off-season tournament had completely vanished. Even LeBron downplayed the significance of the IST win after Friday’s debacle.
“It was just two games. It’s a small sample size. Everybody gets so upset about Vegas and they keep mentioning Vegas. It was two games.” (But the banner hangs forever!)
After the game, a defiant but frustrated Ham questioned the outside scrutiny of individual games, which won’t go over well with the franchise’s obsessive fans.
“I’m tired of people living and dying with every game we play. It’s actually ridiculous. … It’s a marathon. And we’ve come to a tough time.”
In contrast to LeBron’s dismissive attitude toward IST, Ham stressed that the Lakers have “the same team” that “played some high-level games a while ago, and we just have to get back to that.”
“We have to keep fighting. We can’t lose the fight.”
So the Lakers (17-19) will hope to halt their slide on Sunday against a determined Los Angeles Clippers team. If you recall, the Clippers had won 11 meetings in a row before the Lakers’ wild triumph after overtime on November 1.
Of course, the Clippers looked very different back then, before James Harden was traded. The Lakers were also different: They looked like a competent NBA team.