Los Angeles Lakers forward Anthony Davis wasn’t happy with his team’s performance during their 107-83 loss to the Minnesota Timberwolves on Friday night. After taking a five-point lead into the halftime locker room, the Lakers were outscored 40-12 in the third quarter, The game was over after that, as the Wolves had established the momentum — and an insurmountable lead. The loss dropped the Lakers to just one game over .500 (7-6) on the season. Afterward, Davis expressed some frustration.
“We sucked,” Davis said after the game, via ESPN. “No defense. Can’t score. That’s not just this third quarter, it’s every third quarter we’ve played this season. We come out slow, lackadaisical offensively and defensively. We got to get it together. Why? I can’t tell you. But we got to do a better job.”
The third quarter has been an issue for L.A. all season, as they’ve been outscored by a total of 83 points in the third so far, per ESPN. The Lakers’ ultimate goal this season is obviously to win a championship, but Davis doesn’t think they’re playing like a title team at this particular point in time.
“We got to decide who we want to be. A championship team? That’s not us right now,” Davis said. “We’re not winning a championship the way we’re playing. We got to be better, and we got to care more for our wins at home. Wins in general. That was embarrassing.”
It’s certainly not panic time for the Lakers, as it’s still very early in the season, and they’re still trying to integrate a plethora of new parts. Some growing pains were to be expected. Plus, they’re currently without their best player in LeBron James, who is sidelined with an abdominal injury. But, there are clearly some wrinkles that need to be ironed out in order for the team to reach its full potential. In order to reach that potential, Davis knows that the team must stay united in the name of improvement.
“What we can’t do is, one, point the finger,” Davis said. “You know, ‘It was you.’ ‘It was you.’ ‘It was you.’ ‘This play was you.’ Like, we got to stay together. And we’ll stay together. But also, we got to learn from the film. And so the film tomorrow is going to be big for us to have another heart to heart about these type of games. We hate feeling this way. Obviously, if we lose — we’re going to lose games, everybody loses games. But doing it the right way. Having a team actually beat us. Not beating ourselves. And those are the frustrating ones, when we beat ourselves.”
The Lakers have a ton of talent on the roster, and as such it’s likely that they’ll have things figured out by the time postseason play rolls around, even if things haven’t been super smooth for them to start the season.
Courtesy: CBS Sports
