The Atlanta Hawks defeated the Los Angeles Lakers 99-94 on Saturday afternoon.
While the loss in itself was bad, given how close the middle tier of the Western Conference is right now, it wasn’t the worst thing to happen to the defending champs.
The worst thing about Saturday for the Lakers was LeBron James going down with a high ankle sprain. Monday’s revelation of how much time he’ll end up missing only reaffirmed the seriousness of the injury.
Frankly, even if you take James getting hurt out of the equation, Dennis Schroder’s bizarre exchange with Rajon Rondo was a bigger deal than the loss in itself.
Which makes it all the weirder that, for whatever reason, the thing from this weekend that seemed to bother Markieff Morris most was LA losing to Atlanta.
After the fact, the 31-year-old suggested that the NBA had it out for the defending champs and accused the league of scheduling a “trap game” for the Lakers.
“They set us with a trap game, whatever you want to call it. I don’t care how the NBA feel about it,” Morris said.
“It was a trap game playing 20-year-olds at 12 o’clock in the afternoon. They trapped us. We just couldn’t really find it. Me, personally, I find all my shots were short. I end up making some late in the game, but throughout the game just really can’t get over the hump.”
Now that Paige VanZant is done with the UFC, she can focus on the important things. https://t.co/5YLwWtLaGf
— Game 7 (@game7__) March 22, 2021
What makes Morris’ comments so incredibly strange is that the Lakers were actually playing a home game. Meaning, the Hawks were the ones who had to adjust to a time difference here. If anyone was uncomfortable in this setting, it was probably the road team.
Even with the loss, the Lakers are 28-15 and sit third in the West.
With James out and the recent bad news the organization got regarding Anthony Davis’ recovery time, the onus will fall on Schroder to come out and prove that he deserves the max contract he is demanding. Beyond that, the Lakers are also in the hunt for at least two prominent big men – either of which would help them tread water until James and Davis can return to the fold.
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A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
