Hopefully, Wednesday’s loss to the Hornets is the last time we see the Lakers looking this bad.
LOS ANGELES – Good luck writing a script that is more agonizing for Lakers fans than what occurred during Wednesday’s 100-97 home loss against the Hornets. The team had 18 turnovers, shot 15-51 from deep, allowed a 23-1 run in the second half and lost to a team that is currently in 14th place in the 15-team Eastern Conference.
Nights like this happen in an 82-game season. Still, considering the Lakers’ opportunity to go on a run and establish themselves as true contenders in the Western Conference, this performance was a disappointment.
If you want an excuse, you have a buffet of options to choose from. You can blame the All-Star break for rust, the turnovers early on or even the perplexing ejection of Austin Reaves, which coincided with the Hornets rallying to get back into the game.
While all those justifications are rational and fair, the Lakers ultimately didn’t perform well enough to win.
“We played, I don’t even know, 39 to 44 minutes of pretty poor offense and some of that’s to be expected,” head coach JJ Redick said after the loss. “Some of it was sloppiness, some of it was poor spacing, some of it was poor execution. The reason I’m not going to read too much into that is because I think our guys competed tonight and they played extremely hard.
“I also think Charlotte played very sloppy. That’s not to make an excuse. That’s just the reality of just having six days off as a group and trying to integrate new pieces and that happens sometimes. I’ve been part of those first games after All-Star break when they’re humming and things are good and I’ve been part of them when they’ve been sloppy like they were tonight.”
Sloppy is certainly a word that applies to both teams in this game. While Charlotte may have won, if it were possible, they also should’ve been awarded a loss. The Hornets shot 36.3% from the field, had 17 turnovers and nearly crumbled in the fourth when the Lakers temporarily took the lead.
However, this isn’t soccer and someone has to win. Charlotte secured the momentum after LaMelo Ball took Luka Dončić to the rack and dished the ball to Mark Williams for a quick two.
It’s been a very small three-game sample size for the Slovenian, but he’s struggled in a purple and gold uniform so far. He ended the night with just 14 points on 5-18 shooting — he has yet to eclipse 20 points in purple and gold — and also had a game-high six turnovers.
“Yeah, obviously, it’s going to take a lot of time,” Luka said. “Today, a lot of rustiness on my part. I started the game with like four or five turnovers. That can’t happen, so I just got to play basketball the right way.”
While that LaMelo crossover against Luka certainly stung, in case that wasn’t enough, the Basketball Gods gave LeBron James two good looks at game-tying 3-pointers and he bricked both of them to seal L.A.’s fate.
This is a shame for James since he had a very good game, ending the night with 26 points, 11 assists and seven rebounds.
Now, instead of starting the final stretch of games with an easy win over a beatable team, the Lakers fell to a weak opponent in a game where both of their stars played heavy minutes for the first time as a duo.
This was undeniably a frustrating game and an ugly loss on the Lakers’ record, but all who lose are not lost.
Good things take time and patience is needed for Luka to get acclimated with the Lakers and for this team to be the best version of itself.
However, with 29 games to go, there isn’t much room left to get it together.
Hopefully, this is the dark before the dawn and brighter days in the 2024-25 season are ahead. If not, this could quickly become a season that opens up a bright future but closes the present ability to realistically compete for a title.
You can follow Edwin on Twitter at @ECreates88 or on Bluesky at @ecreates88.bsky.social.