The Lakers suffered their most embarrassing defeat of the season yet when they went down 120-101 to the Magic on Saturday night.
LA are now 3-3 after a loss which laid bare a lot of the team’s issues, particularly around defensive rebounding.
Anthony Davis says the whole team was to blame for the sub-par performance.
“It came from everybody, honestly,” Davis said after the game. “Bigs contest it’s on the guards. But then, when the guards could get a contest, the bigs gotta rebound. So it was a collective problem tonight.”
Magic were +11 on the boards during the contest, while LA only managed to grab 10 offensive rebounds to Orlando’s 19.
“I mean, even though we kind of tightened up the screws a little bit [after the first quarter versus Orlando], it’s just the offensive rebounds,” Davis said. “Offensive rebounds killed it the entire game.”
As it stands, LA are tied for 13th in the NBA in total rebounding and are 29th on the offensive glass through at least five games compared with every team in the league.
In total rebounds on Saturday, Magic got 51 to the Lakers’ 40 and like AD, LeBron knows his side has got to be better.
“We got to try to figure it out, because it’s definitely been a trend,” James said about LA’s slow start to the year. “Offensive rebounds and points off turnovers.”
Their defense wasn’t much better, which James also pointed out.
“Our defense looked terrible,” LeBron said.
LeBron and AD were a little short on teammates during the game, with players like Rui Hachimura, Taurean Prince, and Gabe Vincent all out.
But AD is done making excuses.
“We don’t have a choice,” Davis said. “We can’t use the excuse if guys are out, East Coast time change, all that. The guys who played have been in a league long enough to be ready, to go out and get a win. So, if we don’t want to stay on this side of the win-loss column, then we got to come out with a better first quarter on Monday.”
The team is in a much better position than they were this time last year after going 0-12 to start the season, so there is certainly still time to turn things around.
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