LOS ANGELES – The Los Angeles Lakers suffered only their eighth loss of the 2019-20 NBA season on Wednesday night while hitting the halfway point of the campaign. The Orlando Magic were able to get a one-point win over LeBron James and company in Los Angeles, but optimism is as high as ever that this Lakers team may very well be championship bound.
“We've got a good team,” Frank Vogel said of losing to a sub-.500 team. “Even when we're not our best, we have the ability to rally and almost get past our deficiencies early in the game, but it just wasn't enough tonight. [Orlando] is a team that's got a playoff culture. They were a playoff team last year, third-best team in the East [in] the second half of the year. They're very well-coached, and they're tied together on the defensive end, and they made things difficult for us tonight. Even the guys that don't play the regular minutes, those guys just made the best of their opportunities.”
Although a lot is being made of the Lakers losing to a team under .500, the Magic are only one win under breaking even at 20-21. This was also the first sub-.500 team the Lakers have lost to all season. LeBron James talked about not caring about records of the opponents they face as they respect each team they go head-to-head with.
“We don't pay attention to records,” James said. “We're all NBA players, regardless of the record, and you have to go out and compete to win no matter what the record is. We don't really pay attention to that. We respect every opponent, and that's what it's all about.”
Despite the loss to the Magic not being what the team wants before a long road trip, the Lakers are still playing at a very high level and are being mentioned in the same breath as some of the franchise's best teams in history. Los Angeles now has tied the second-best record through 41 games with three other legendary Lakers squads at 33-8.
Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O'Neal accomplished this feat in 1999-00. Magic Johnson's team did it during the Showtime era in 1987-88, and Bryant made it happen for a second time during his stint with the Lakers alongside Pau Gasol in the 2008-09 season. Wilt Chamberlain and Jerry West still have the best mark through 41 games in Lakers history at 38-3, which they accomplished during the historic 1971-72 campaign.
One thing all these Lakers teams have in common is they all went on to win a title in these seasons in which they dominated the competition in the first half of their respective campaigns.
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