The Los Angeles Lakers have been shaken to their core. On Wednesday night, they suffered their worst loss of the 2024-25 season to this point after the Miami Heat laughed them off Kaseya Center by demolishing them by 41 points, 134-93.
For a team that had such high hopes to start the season, especially after taking three-straight wins to start the year against teams with playoff aspirations, this brutal two-game stretch in which they lost by a combined 70 points is causing a bit of an existential crisis.
Losing is never an easy pill to swallow, especially for proud winners such as LeBron James and Anthony Davis. And just as winning cures all ills, losing, and in embarrassing fashion no less, is the cause of all sicknesses in professional sports. Davis is very much cognizant of this, and he's warning the Lakers not to let this horrid stretch cause a rot to fester within the locker room.
“We can't separate. We gotta stay together as a team, as a unit, and make sure that this doesn't turn into something that we don't want,” Davis said following the Lakers' nightmare loss vs. the Heat, per Jovan Buha of The Athletic.
There is a temptation to point fingers whenever things aren't going in one's favor. But for the Lakers, it has been a collective failure on both ends of the floor that has led to two gruesome defeats over the past three days.
Playing the blame game is never the answer, and as James did, taking accountability and diagnosing the problem is the first step to actually resolving the issues that are plaguing the team as of the moment.
The Lakers' composure will be tested, although at the very least, they will have serial winners such as James and Davis leading the path ahead as they navigate their way back to the winning path.
Anthony Davis has to be better for the Lakers
It will be hard for Anthony Davis to point the fingers at others for the Lakers' terrible play in recent games, as he hasn't quite been himself during this stretch. He was coming off an outing in which he scored just 12 points on 4-of-14 shooting from the field — a terrible showing against the reigning Defensive Player of the Year in Rudy Gobert.
And then on Wednesday night against the Heat, Davis went up against another lockdown defender in Bam Adebayo and proceeded to stink it up even further, scoring just eight points on 3-of-14 shooting. He has to be better if the Lakers were to have any chance of righting the ship.