On Saturday evening, the Los Angeles Lakers came crashing back down to Earth with a blowout road loss at the hands of the Atlanta Hawks to end their brief winning streak. Making matters especially embarrassing for the Lakers was the fact that the Hawks were without their top four leading scorers in this game due to injury, and still had no problem making easy work of Los Angeles.
After the game, Lakers big man Deandre Ayton got 100% honest on what he felt went wrong for the team in the loss.
“Really, probably leaving those guys underestimated, not keeping those guys account,” Ayton said, per Gautam Varier of Fadeaway World. “Forgetting about them that this is the NBA and those are NBA players… I feel like we were just behind the ball a little bit, and they killed us in transition, and they played amazing defense. And we weren’t ready for it, and JJ [Redick] basically got on us about it. Yeah, we ready for the next game.”
Ayton also spoke on how these sorts of things can happen from time to time in the NBA.
“That’s why it’s kind of like a hard pill to swallow, for real. We know what we’re coming up against, and seeing how they played, they played phenomenal, but us not even damn near competing in a sense. It looks bad on paper and looks bad on film,” said Ayton.
A tough loss for the Lakers
In addition to being without five of their rotational players, the Hawks were playing on the second end of a back to back, whereas the Lakers hadn't suited up since Wednesday evening.
Still, you wouldn't know that from the team's energy level, as Los Angeles relinquished layup lines to the rim throughout the first half and were already at arm's length by the time the Hawks caught fire from beyond the arc.
In any case, the Lakers will look to put this loss behind them when they continue their East Coast trip on Monday evening against the Charlotte Hornets.
