On Sunday afternoon, LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers dropped to 1-2 on the post All-Star break portion of their 2023-24 NBA schedule with a frustrating road loss to Kevin Durant and the Phoenix Suns. James put together a solid game in this one, scoring 28 points, dishing out 12 assists, and pulling down 7 rebounds, but it wasn't enough to help a Lakers squad that couldn't get any stops when they needed to on Sunday.

Los Angeles found themselves down by as many as twenty points in the first quarter against the Suns, prompting head coach Darvin Ham to address the Lakers' slow start during his postgame press conference.

“You can't give up 45-point quarters or you're gonna be playing behind the eight-ball the rest of the way,” said Ham, per Lakers Nation on X, the social media platform formerly referred to as Twitter.

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Indeed, giving up 45 points to open up a game is not exactly a recipe for prosperity in the NBA. It's true that teams are much more capable of completing comebacks in the modern age than in any other era, simply due to the high frequency and accuracy with which teams can shoot the three-point ball now.

However, completing such a comeback requires teams to expend a large amount of energy and possibly run out of it down the stretch, which is exactly what happened to the Lakers on Sunday afternoon.

Up next for Los Angeles is a “road” game against their rival Los Angeles Clippers on Wednesday evening from The Crypt.