Lately, whenever the Los Angeles Lakers have managed to string together two straight wins, the same question has hovered over them: Can they actually build momentum and start playing well for an extended stretch?
They defeated two good teams on Monday and Wednesday in the Oklahoma City Thunder and Dallas Mavericks, respectively, to get back to .500. They hosted the Brooklyn Nets on Friday, and with a 16-24 record, the Nets looked like mere fodder for them at first.
Things seemed fairly easy for the Lakers in the first half when they shot a high percentage and led by as many as a dozen points. But they had only a six-point advantage at halftime and seemed to be in cruise control. They paid for that mindset when they went cold in the third quarter and fell behind by 12 points as Brooklyn was hot from 3-point range.
That deficit ballooned to 20 in the final period as the Nets had L.A. confused on defense by attacking the paint and making the extra pass to get good looks from the outside. Los Angeles contributed to its own demise by getting away from an up-tempo offense, standing around on offense, missing a number of chippies, committing some unforced turnovers and failing to execute its defensive strategy.
The Purple and Gold ended up losing a dispirited game by the final score of 130-112. Of all the Nets’ players, Cam Thomas was the one who killed L.A. the most. He was feeling it, especially in the second half, and he rode that irrational confidence to 33 points on 13-of-18 shooting in 31 minutes.
The Lakers simply seem unable to get out of their own way and play up to anything resembling their potential for more than a couple of games at a time.