Deandre Ayton Admits Lakers Underestimated Hawks Due To Injuries

The Los Angeles Lakers were rolling to start the season, but they took a step backwards on Saturday night when they were blown out by the Atlanta Hawks to begin their five-game road trip.

It was the Lakers’ first road loss of the season so there’s no reason to be overly concerned, although the way they lost was definitely disappointing.

The Hawks were playing in the second night of a back-to-back so were without most of their key players, including Trae Young, Jalen Johnson, Kristaps Porzingis and Nickeil Alexander-Walker. They were the most aggressive team from the jump though and pulled away in the second half for the easy victory.

After the loss, Lakers center Deandre Ayton gave credit to the Hawks and admitted they may have underestimated them, as seen on Spectrum SportsNet:

“Really probably leaving those guys underestimated and not keeping those guys accountable, forgetting about them. This is the NBA and those are NBA players. They deceived us a little with their shotmaking. Seeing the scouting report and the clips they’ve had from their previous games, that film was not showing what was out there. That’s how it is in the NBA, it’s one of those nights where you really need to lock in and dial in and I feel like we were just behind the ball a little bit and they killed us in transition and they played amazing defense. We weren’t ready for it and JJ really got on us about being ready for the next game.”

The Lakers had a similar game recently where they were without most of their key players in the second of a back-to-back but went on the road and beat a tough Portland Trail Blazers team. Because of that, Ayton feels the Lakers should have been more ready for this one:

“Yeah. That’s why it’s kind of like a hard pill to swallow, for real. We know what we’re coming up against and seeing how they played, they played phenomenal, but us not even competing in a sense. It looks bad on paper and looks bad on film. This is one of those games where the food is gonna taste bad tonight. But this is the NBA, we got 82 games. Next game up.”

As far as what went wrong, Ayton pointed to the the defensive end of the floor:

“It just wasn’t connected at all, discombobulated a little bit with how fast it was moving. Those guys were hungry, next man up mentality and it really showed up. Their coach should be really happy with those guys over there, they really moved the ball well, I think they had plus 30 assists as well and they had us moving. They were in our paint and we couldn’t do nothing about it.”

This was the start of a tough five-game road trip for the Lakers so hopefully they use it as fuel and bounce back when they take the floor against the Charlotte Hornets on Monday.

JJ Redick was man of few words after Lakers loss to Hawks

Lakers head coach JJ Redick didn’t have much to say after the loss to the Hawks as he was understandably disappointed with his team’s play.