After the All-Star break, LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers lost a tough away game against Kevin Durant and the Phoenix Suns on Sunday afternoon, dropping them to 1-2 on their 2023–24 NBA schedule. Even though James had a strong performance in this one, finishing with 28 points, 12 assists, and 7 rebounds, it wasn’t enough to lift the Lakers, who on Sunday were unable to come up with any stops when they needed to.
Darvin Ham, the head coach of Los Angeles, addressed the Lakers’ poor start in his postgame press conference after his team trailed the Suns by as many as twenty points in the first quarter.
According to Lakers Nation on X, the social networking site that was once known as Twitter, Ham stated, “You can’t give up 45-point quarters or you’re going to be playing behind the eight-ball the rest of the way.”
It’s true that losing by 45 points early in a game isn’t exactly a surefire way to succeed in the NBA. It is true that because teams can shoot the three-point shot with such accuracy and frequency these days, they are far more capable of pulling off comebacks than they were in any previous era.
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.
