The Los Angeles Lakers finished their preseason winless on Thursday night following a 116-112 loss to the Sacramento Kings.
Although the 4-point defeat was a welcome improvement from the 17.5-point average margin of their previous five L’s, Lakers fans can’t be blamed for feeling a bit uneasy over how these exhibition games have gone.
Newly-acquired guard, Russell Westbrook, has had a particularly difficult time thus far.
One of the few bright spots of these early outings has been the solid play of Carmelo Anthony — despite him getting bruised, bloodied and battered in the process. It was more of the same on Wednesday night, as he recorded 15 points in 27 minutes of action.
This week, Anthony offered his blunt thoughts on the Lakers’ disastrous preseason run.
“We can see how we jell together. I thought we had some great moments when all four of us were on the court together,” Anthony said, per the Los Angeles Times. “We had spurts where we were very in-tune, we were locked in. We don’t expect it to happen overnight. But I thought yesterday was one of those moments where like, ‘OK, we see that, we see that.’ It looks good. It felt good. I believe we will build off of that.”
Anthony believes that LA will reach a certain level of comfortability sooner rather than later.
“You find your groove,” he continued. “I think we’ll figure it out much quicker than people are giving us credit for. But that’s on us. That’s something, we take that challenge. That’s something we know and that’s something we talk about. Even though it’s preseason and we lost some games, that’s definitely something that we talk about. How do we speed that process up without cheating? And I think we’re very aware when it comes to that.”
When Terry Bradshaw saw what Erin Andrews was wearing, he couldn’t help himself. https://t.co/Yg0qPqcErK
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Earlier this week, Anthony Davis also shared his thoughts on why the Lakers struggled so much in the preseason. He too seems to believe the problems will be resolved sooner rather than later.
Head coach Frank Vogel similarly seems to think that all of the team’s issues can be traced back to one problem – and that the problem is fairly simple to fix.
Clearly, everyone on the Lakers is under the impression that the rough times won’t last much longer. Are they right to be so confident? Time will tell.
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Charles Kruger has been credentialed to cover two Super Bowls, four NBA Finals, and one World Series. A 20-year veteran in the sports world, he has sources spanning the NBA, MLB, NFL, UFC and NASCAR. Currently residing in Los Angeles, Calif., he is Game 7’s go-to source for rumors surrounding the Lakers, Clippers and Dodgers.
