Lakers fail to hit .500; ‘I didn’t do my job,’ says AD
LOS ANGELES — The Los Angeles Lakers lost 112-108 to the New York Knicks on Sunday and antonio davis he blamed himself for the halt in momentum when his team blew a chance to get back to .500 for the first time since opening the season schedule 0-0.
“My play,” Davis said when asked about the reason for the loss. “I played terrible. I couldn’t find my shot: free throws, layups, everything. The guys did their job. I didn’t do my job tonight.”
Davis finished with 17 points, 16 rebounds, four assists, two steals and one block, but he missed 10 of his 18 field goal attempts and also missed four of five free throws.
In the fourth quarter, when New York outscored Los Angeles 27-22 to upset with jalen brunson Sidelined with a left foot injury, Davis was only 1 of 4 from the field in nine minutes.
“It’s in everyone,” Lakers guard dennis schroeder saying. “When we lose, we lose as a team. When we win, we win as a team. But AD, he tries to be great at all times, and he has been, 90 percent of the time, great for us… So, he can’t put it on himself same”.
Instead of matching their record, the Lakers fell to 33-35 and fell out of the play-in tournament picture, at least temporarily, as the No. 11 seed in the Western Conference.
Davis’ lackluster performance came a game after teammates praised him for not forcing anything in Los Angeles’ 122-112 win over the Toronto Raptors on Friday, when he scored just eight points on 4-of-7 shooting. but he encouraged the group to stick with what was working.
Davis didn’t think Toronto would offer a defensive script for the Knicks to follow.
“I just missed a lot of shots,” he said. “I don’t think they did anything special. A lot of times one on one, they doubled a couple of times. But I don’t think it was something that was passed down from Toronto.”
Even with Davis not living up to their standards, the Lakers had their chances. They led by four at the end of the third quarter, with D’Angelo Russell scoring 31 of his season-high 33 points before the fourth quarter even began.
“That one hurts,” said Russell, who went 13-for-19 in the game after starting 9-for-10 from the field. “That one hurt us. I think we were struggling, we tried to do everything we could. We couldn’t get enough rebounds, we didn’t stop, we didn’t make enough shots. It just didn’t turn out the way we wanted it to, I guess.” .”
Los Angeles gave one last push when Schroder’s layup with 19.3 seconds remaining in the fourth quarter cut the Knicks’ lead to two, but the Lakers took too long to foul out afterwards, stopping the clock with 5.0 seconds remaining to put the ball on. joseph hart On the line. He made two free throws to push New York’s lead to four and essentially seal the win.
“You try to force a turnover if you can, and then you foul,” Lakers coach Darvin Ham explained. “And it just so happened that they scattered us. They did a great job getting the ball away quickly and allowing time to run out. To do it again, I would do it the same way. I would definitely do it the same way.” It was unfortunate that we couldn’t commit a foul in time.”
Even though their three-game winning streak came to an end, there was a positive development for the Lakers on Sunday. Lebron James rejoined the team after being on medical leave last week. The 20-year veteran no longer wears walking boots. The tendon injury in his right foot will be reevaluated in about a week and a half, the team said.
“It’s also good for him to tune out a little bit,” Ham said of James. “Not being detached, necessarily, but just calming down a bit mentally with everything that’s happened over the year… It’s not just about me being healthy; it’s about being in a good place mentally and spiritually so that we can best version of him when he returns.”
Los Angeles has 14 games left on the schedule, starting with a back-to-back against the New Orleans Pelicans on Tuesday and the Houston Rockets on Wednesday.
The Pelicans (33-35) are one of four teams from the West grouped in the standings with identical records, along with the Lakers, Oklahoma City Thunder and Utah Jazz.
“Every game shouldn’t require a Western Conference team to be motivated,” Schroder said. “I think every game we have to be motivated and ready. But that one, the next two, we have to get that.”