Ron Chenoy-USA TODAY Sports

LeBron James is explaining why he snuck out the back door instead of speaking to the media after his team’s most recent loss.

The Los Angeles Lakers got smoked by the Denver Nuggets on the weekend, losing in a 133-96 blowout. James left without doing a postgame press conference, which is a rare occurrence for him.

On Monday, James explained why he did not stick around for reporters.

“I didn’t like what was going to come out of my mouth,” the former MVP said, per Harrison Faigen of Silver Screen and Roll. “I understand that things that I say can be everywhere, so I didn’t want to do that to my teammates at that point in time.”

James is known for handling losing poorly. It sounds like he stopped himself before saying something that he would regret, such as potentially throwing his teammates under the bus.

The Lakers responded to the thrashing by Denver with their best win of the season, beating the Utah Jazz on Monday 101-95. But the team remains .500 on the year, and there are signs that they are still skating on very thin ice.

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