Los Angeles Lakers superstars Anthony Davis and LeBron James are out to get back in the win column against the Toronto Raptors after getting blown out in their second straight loss to the Cleveland Cavaliers following a strong 3-0 start to the season.
Anthony Davis calls Lakers “god awful” after blowout loss to Cavaliers
Lakers superstars Anthony Davis and LeBron James were not fond of the way they and their teammates played against the Cavaliers in their last game. Suffering a brutal 134-110 loss to the Cavs, Davis bashed his team, saying this in the locker room after the contest per Aaditya Krishnamurthy of Fadeaway World (h/t YardBarker):
“This is the first game where we regressed, and we were god-awful offensively because of our spacing. Nothing about us being a new team… We just didn’t do it tonight,” Davis said.
LeBron James believes Lakers took a step back vs. Cavs
According to Dan Woike of the Los Angeles Times, James also pulled no punches when evaluating the way in which he felt the Lakers’ unit regressed on Wednesday night (h/t Ron Gutterman of Lakers Nation):
“I just don’t think we matched their intensity with energy and effort,” James said. “It’s never good to take a step backwards, but we did that. And now we got to figure out how we can, take two steps forward next time.”
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The Lakers need more scoring and efficiency following loss to bounce back vs. Raptors
Suffering a 24-point loss is never easy. However, the Lakers were not on their A-game. Rui Hachimura fell back to earth after boasting flashes of his ascendancy through Los Angeles’ first four games. He finished with a season-low eight points on the affair.
Lakers point guard D’Angelo Russell’s cold start to the year continued, as he scored 10 points on an inefficient 2-7 shooting from the field and 0-3 from distance. Austin Reaves also struggled, pitching in seven points and two rebounds.
Davis did not impose his will on the Cavaliers, as the former did put up a 20-point double-double with 22 points and 13 rebounds, but was not as aggressive as the way he was in their previous outings, which got him out to an early lead in the 2024-25 scoring title race. James and rookie Dalton Knecht were the only true bright spots for Los Angeles, especially with the latter scoring 18 points off the bench on 50 percent shooting from the floor.
Nevertheless, the Lakers will look to right the ship on Friday night and put the 21 percent three-point percentage and 20 turnovers they committed in Cleveland behind them as they gear up for a Raptors team that is allowing their opponents to connect on the second-highest three-point percentage (41 percent) among all teams and is forcing only 14.4 turnovers a night.
