"We have to be better."
Those wise words were said by Anthony Davis Friday night after the Los Angeles Lakers suffered a surprising and punishing loss to the Minnesota Timberwolves. 107-83 was not what LA expected and this loss stung more than many others.
Davis continued: "We got to care more for our wins at home, wins in general. That was embarrassing to be up five at half — obviously this team shoots a lot of threes and they have guys that can score the basketball — but there was no effort in the third quarter. I don’t want to say the first half. The first half, we looked really good. We had some mistakes but our effort was there. Energy in the third quarter wasn’t there for us.”
Davis is darn right about that. While there are plenty of problems with the Lakers (and, honestly, every NBA team) the Lakers have a very particular issue when it comes to their third-quarter output. Simply put, they are doing a horrible job maintaining or attaining a lead in the third quarter.
Take a look at their season so far. You can see multiple instances where they are savagely outscored in the third frame, sometimes by as much as 15 to 20 points. Last night was particularly rough when the T-Wolves scored 40 points in the third quarter and the Lakers put up...12. Ouch.
What is the cause of this? Fatigue? Smart opponents? Complacency? Maybe it's a bit of all three.
To his credit, coach Frank Vogel has been tweaking the Lakers line-up a lot, often on the fly in the middle of games. That's a smart thing to do during the early part of the season and ensures that the team will be working a lot better later on. However, he needs to focus on finding the right configuration for the third quarter because, so far, nothing he's tried has worked.
There is no reason why any team should be outscored by nearly 30 points in one single quarter and there is definitely no reason why the Los Angeles Lakers should suffer that fate. Between their skill, knowledge, and coaching team, they should be cleaning up at that point in the game.
It's rare to have an instance when you can point to one single part of a game and say "This! This right here is what's causing a team to lose!" But that's exactly what's happening now. The third quarter has become a death zone for the Lakers. If they don't solve this situation soon, the rest of the season is going to be very, very rough.
"We have to be better."
Those wise words were said by Anthony Davis Friday night after the Los Angeles Lakers suffered a surprising and punishing loss to the Minnesota Timberwolves. 107-83 was not what LA expected and this loss stung more than many others.
Davis continued: "We got to care more for our wins at home, wins in general. That was embarrassing to be up five at half — obviously this team shoots a lot of threes and they have guys that can score the basketball — but there was no effort in the third quarter. I don’t want to say the first half. The first half, we looked really good. We had some mistakes but our effort was there. Energy in the third quarter wasn’t there for us.”
Davis is darn right about that. While there are plenty of problems with the Lakers (and, honestly, every NBA team) the Lakers have a very particular issue when it comes to their third-quarter output. Simply put, they are doing a horrible job maintaining or attaining a lead in the third quarter.
Take a look at their season so far. You can see multiple instances where they are savagely outscored in the third frame, sometimes by as much as 15 to 20 points. Last night was particularly rough when the T-Wolves scored 40 points in the third quarter and the Lakers put up...12. Ouch.
What is the cause of this? Fatigue? Smart opponents? Complacency? Maybe it's a bit of all three.
To his credit, coach Frank Vogel has been tweaking the Lakers line-up a lot, often on the fly in the middle of games. That's a smart thing to do during the early part of the season and ensures that the team will be working a lot better later on. However, he needs to focus on finding the right configuration for the third quarter because, so far, nothing he's tried has worked.
There is no reason why any team should be outscored by nearly 30 points in one single quarter and there is definitely no reason why the Los Angeles Lakers should suffer that fate. Between their skill, knowledge, and coaching team, they should be cleaning up at that point in the game.
It's rare to have an instance when you can point to one single part of a game and say "This! This right here is what's causing a team to lose!" But that's exactly what's happening now. The third quarter has become a death zone for the Lakers. If they don't solve this situation soon, the rest of the season is going to be very, very rough.
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