Russell Westbrook, LeBron James, and the Los Angeles Lakers were not in good spirits following their deflating 108-95 loss to the Memphis Grizzlies, who were playing without Ja Morant, Brandon Clarke, and Dillon Brooks.

After a promising and energized first quarter, the Lakers got careless—as in, they didn't seem to care about protecting the basketball, and they didn't play like a team that cared about winning the game. They committed 22 turnovers, leading to 27 Grizzlies points, and were repeatedly outhustled and outrebounded.

Afterward, Westbrook brought up what has been a common talking point for the star-studded Lakers team since the onset of training camp: They're always going to get their opponents' best effort—it simply comes with the territory.

“We know what we’re supposed to do,” Westbrook said about falling to a short-handed Grizzlies group. “We know when we’re supposed to take and win games, regardless of who’s playing. But this is the NBA, and these guys are professional, just as well as us. We gotta do a better job of taking on the challenge, because we know that when everybody’s playing the Los Angeles Lakers, we’re going to get everybody’s best shot. We know that from the start of the year.”

“We understand that, but we gotta be able to own our s***, simple as that,” the Lakers guard added.

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Anthony Davis, who posted an unremarkable 22 points, echoed the sentiment.

“It’s a mindset thing. We understand that we’re going to get everybody’s best shot. We can’t control misses or makes, but we can control our effort defensively. We try to hold our hats on being a top-five defensive team, and we haven’t been. We’ve gotta change that quickly. We can’t keep taking a step forward and two steps backward. We gotta fix it quickly.”

Easier said than done, apparently.

The good news: The Lakers will have a chance to “fix it quickly,” as they travel to face the Oklahoma City Thunder on Friday. Considering the above comments and the fact that OKC has beaten the Lakers twice this season, LA should certainly expect a fight.