LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers can’t seem to be two potential postseason rivals. The Denver Nuggets have beaten them eight consecutive times, and the Sacramento Kings just swept the season series against them.
The Kings have now won eight of their last nine against the Lakers. Mike Brown has vastly outcoached Darvin Ham, who has failed to make any sort of adjustments to prevent this.
That was on full display again on Wednesday night. The Lakers hit the ground running and got off to a solid start before the Kings stormed right back. That’s why Anthony Davis was far from happy with his team’s effort.
Anthony Davis Talks As Kings Sweep Lakers
“We had a 17-point quarter,” Davis said after the loss. “We came out in the third and had some turnovers early, they had some guys capitalize on our missed shots. Harrison (Barnes) shot the ball well, they were all really goo from 3. We had a tough shooting night, the turnovers kind of hurt us a bit, offensive rebounding. Anytime they got a rebound, it resulted in a 3 most of the time. It’s tough, you know they’re a good team and when we give them second-chance points or turn the ball over and give them easy points in transition, it just makes it a lot harder.”
Davis Is Frustrated
Davis admitted to being quite frustrated with this situation. He called his team out for not picking up the intensity, and he talked about how poorly they shot from the field:
“It’s frustrating, especially the last two games. We had a terrible second quarter at our place and that was the game right there,” Davis continued. “Tonight, I think it might’ve been the third quarter where we had 17 points. So just came out of halftime and couldn’t put the ball in the basket. Had tough turnovers, especially to start the third. They got some easy looks so to be down four and I think it went to 12, something like that, pretty quickly. So we just got to come out of half ready to go. We all struggled from the field, me, LeBron and DLo, particularly me with shots around the basketball in the first half. When you’re down, you don’t want to give team like this any more extra points. When we give up extra points off of offensive rebounds and turnovers, it’s a lot tougher to beat them.”
The fact that two of their potential playoff rivals have the Lakers’ number doesn’t bode well for their championship chances, and the front office might want to consider a coaching change if this happens again in the playoffs.
SURVEY Will the Lakers go far in the playoffs?
Will the Lakers go far in the playoffs?
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