On Monday evening, the Los Angeles Lakers crashed back down to Earth with a blowout loss at the hands of the Phoenix Suns. Despite playing with a mostly healthy lineup against a Suns team that saw Devin Booker exit in the first half and was already without Jalen Green, the Lakers turned in one of their most disappointing efforts of the season in this one.
After the game, shooting guard Austin Reaves, who had a rare off night from the field, spoke on what he felt went wrong in the loss.
“One of those games. We played bad, they played harder than us. That can't happen,” said Reaves, per Spectrum SportsNet on X, formerly Twitter.
Overall, the Lakers still sit 10 games above the .500 mark at 15-5 and have been one of the more surprising (in a good way) teams so far this season. However, last year, the team had a propensity to completely spiral when things weren't going their way early on in games, and that trend manifested once again with the loss to Phoenix. Los Angeles certainly could have used the energy and defensive intensity of Marcus Smart in this one.
LeBron James had a poor performance in this one, scoring just 10 points, and launching shots well into garbage time in order to ensure that he kept his consecutive games of double-digit scoring streak alive.
In any case, the Lakers will look to put this game in the rearview mirror quickly as they embark on an East Coast trip beginning on Thursday with a game against the Toronto Raptors. Los Angeles has had the fifth-easiest strength of schedule so far this year, and while it's not exactly a murderer's row of Eastern opponents on deck, they'll still need to bring much better energy than they did on Monday night against the Suns.
