Lakers blowout loss to Heat despite LeBron James' production exposes team 

Something that's become a constant theme of the 2024-25 NBA season happened again — the Los Angeles Lakers endured a rough loss and were exposed on Wednesday night by the Miami Heat to the tune of 134-99. 

Los Angeles' blowout loss also came despite LeBron James breaking out of his recent slump. 

Not only did the Lakers, who are now 12-10 on the season and are barely holding onto a spot in the NBA's play-in tournament to determine the final playoff seeds, lose in convincing fashion, they lost every single quarter in the game, entering the second half down 69-52 before the game got even more out of hand from there. 

This also now gives Los Angeles back-to-back embarrassing losses, adding this to Monday night's 109-80 defeat to the Minnesota Timberwolves. 

But unlike the loss to Minnesota, or even any of their six in their last eight games, the game against the Heat happened even with James back to form. The Lakers fell to a team with a worse record than theirs in a game James scored 29 points while connecting on 12-of-18 shots from the field. 

It's often said, and it's true, that the Lakers will only go as far as their legendary leader takes them. So with that said, failing to even be competitive when James is the best he can possibly be at 40 is even more concerning than losing when he's struggling. 

James only produced 10 points in their 29-point loss on Monday. He's only surpassed 20 points in one other game since he exploded for 31 back on Nov. 21. 

And what happened against Miami is so concerning, Lakers first-year head coach JJ Redick let his team have it during his postgame press conference. 

"I’m embarrassed. We’re all embarrassed. It’s not a game where we had the right fight, the right professionalism. There has to be some ownership. I own this but there’s going to have to be some ownership on the court," said Redick to reporters like Dave McMenamin. 

The week started with some speculating if we were finally going to see a significant dip in James' game. But now that we know he does have more in the tank, it's fair to wonder if the Lakers are even good enough as a team for it to really matter. James entered the game averaging 22 points so far on the season, well below his career average of 27.1. 

But unfortunately for the Lakers, when James has been hot, his L.A. co-star Anthony Davis is cold. Davis scored only eight points in 31:24 minutes on Wednesday and only 12 in 32:57 on Monday. Those lackluster efforts came after Davis put up 33 on Dec. 1. 

The expectations are always sky-high for any LeBron James-led team, but there's an added sense of urgency this year, with Father Time creeping up on the NBA's all-time leader scorer. 

After being humbled one more time, it's becoming clear the Lakers are just simply not true contenders, regardless how James plays.