Things were finally starting to look good for the Los Angeles Lakers, at least up until halftime of their matchup against the Oklahoma City Thunder. During the game, the purple and gold were up 26 points at one point in the game! Now, you might think that's easy to win, right? Well, not for the Lakers.
The team which is regarded as one of the best teams in the Western Conference for this season failed to put the aforementioned game to bed. OKC made a stunning comeback and stunned the team as they won the game with a score of 123-115.
After having a phenomenal game last time around, Russell Westbrook had a pretty bad game this time around. He was sent off and had an awful stat line. With the season taking shape, this is not a good sign for the team.
Lakers legend James Worthy, who won three NBA Championships with the team, expressed his thoughts about the team blowing this lead.
"You have to finish the job, regardless of who you’re playing,” Worthy said. “You cannot disrespect the worst team in the league. In fact, you make sure you put them away and let them know that they don’t have a chance. I think the Lakers came out with that mentality but I dont know what happened, they kind of just disrespected these young guys... I have seen a lot of Lakers losses. this might be the worst Lakers loss I've seen."
Worthy capped off by saying, "I know it’s early in the season, but this wasn’t one of those games. They should have won the game, and the disrespect that they showed for Oklahoma by not being professional and finishing the job, it’s not Lakers style."
The crux of the game has to be the lack of defense played by the Lakers. Even if they were up by more than 25 points until halftime, letting things go easy is the worst mistake a team can make in the NBA.
The Lakers committed this mistake in the game, and they paid a heavy price for it. Hopefully, they can bounce back from this embarrassing defeat and we'll see a brilliant performance from the team soon.
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