The Los Angeles Lakers resumed their downward slide on Friday night, falling 127-113 at home to the Memphis Grizzlies. The loss was the Lakers’ fourth in a row and their tenth in 13 games since winning the inaugural NBA in-season tournament.
If the season ended today, the Lakers would be 17-19 and the No. 11 seed in the Western Conference, which would not be enough for a play-in tournament spot.
Following the game on Friday night, Los Angeles LeBron James, the NBA’s superstar, was honest in his assessment of his team’s performance.
Los Angeles had a great start to the season, going 4-0 to win the NBA’s inaugural in-season tournament title. However, James appears to feel that his team’s strong results in the in-season tournament semifinals and championship game in Las Vegas are no longer important.
“That was just two games,” James explained. “It’s a small sample size.” Everyone is cracking up over Vegas and keeps bringing it up.
There were two games. We took care of that matter. It was the regular season tournament. We had fun with it. We were victorious. But those were only two games.
Los Angeles started the season with great hopes after reaching the Western Conference finals the previous year, but they have yet to live up to those expectations this season.
The Lakers will aim to snap their losing skid against the rival Los Angeles Clippers (22-12), who have won five straight games and 14 of their last 16 games. The game begins at 9:30 p.m. at Crypto.com Arena.
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