When it comes to the battle for Los Angeles, the Lakers can’t seem to overcome the Clippers who, extended their win streak to 11 over the purple and gold on Wednesday night.
Despite the heightened stakes, the Lakers came out flat in the first quarter and allowed the Clippers to take the early momentum. After the Lakers briefly took a lead in the first quarter, the Clippers quickly snatched it back and went on to lead the rest of the way.
LeBron James looked like someone who played the night before, scoring only three points in the first half. It was easily the worst half of basketball James has played during the 2022-23 season and he later admitted the schedule did him and his team no favors, via Spectrum SportsNet:
“It was tough. It was one of the toughest games we’ve had this year. Just coming off the road trip, and getting back late last night but after an overtime game. It was a tough game for us, obviously we started out in the first half not playing Laker basketball. We had some good spurts but not enough. This is one of those scheduling conflicts in the season and it definitely got the best of us tonight.”
The Lakers were coming off a thrilling overtime win against the Utah Jazz on Tuesday when James was able to lift them to victory in the closing minutes. However, the win clearly came at a cost as the King and his teammates didn’t have their usual energy on either end of the floor against the Clippers.
A back-to-back set to close a five-game road trip at the end of the season would be rough for any team, but particularly for the Lakers who rely on a 38-year-old James. Fans don’t want to hear any excuses after losses, especially to a rival team like the Clippers, but the fact of the matter is the Lakers looked too gassed to truly put up the kind of effort needed to get a win.
Unfortunately, this perhaps seals the Lakers’ fate as a Play-In Tournament team. There’s still a shot that they can finish as the No. 6 seed and avoid the Play-In, but that’ll require some luck as they need to win out and have the Golden State Warriors lose at least one of their last two games.
LeBron James wanted to redeem himself in overtime against Jazz
Los Angeles had a chance to avoid overtime in Utah, but James missed what would’ve been a game-winning layup in regulation. However, he made up for it by getting his layup in overtime to go to give the Lakers a win. After the game against the Jazz, James admitted he wanted to redeem himself with that play.
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