The Los Angeles Lakers came into their game against the Orlando Magic on the road tonight with an expectation to seal the win after losing their last two encounters before tonight. Unfortunately, the fully healthy Lakers couldn’t find their February rhythm and fell to a 106-118 loss.
Luka Doncic led the Lakers with 32 points (9-23 FG), seven rebounds, and seven assists. LeBron James put up a decent 24 points (9-18 FG), six rebounds, and seven assists while Austin Reaves had 18 points (7-16 FG), six rebounds, and four assists. Dorian Finney-Smith ended the night with 14 points (5-7 FG), being the last Laker to score in double digits tonight.
Fans seemed to start showing signs of panicking after the Lakers lost.
“Coming off of a bad loss you really wanted to see something from the Lakers tonight. They chose a different path,” said one fan about the demoralizing loss.
“Franz Wagner took Jeanie Buss’ position as owner of the Los Angeles Lakers this year,” said one fan making a hilarious comment.
“They were talking about sum ‘OKC, KFC, UFC, Lakers in 5,’ LMFAO,” said one non-Lakers fan happy to see them get humbled.
“The Lakers just lost to the Bulls and Magic but people want me to take them serious,” said one fan.
“Lakers defense might be coming back down to Earth,” said one fan about their league-best defense declining and looking average now.
“Bro what happened to this Laker team?? This looks like a completely different team from 2 weeks ago,” said another fan about the distinctly different Lakers.
A two-headed monster led the Magic. Franz Wagner put up 32 points (13-26 FG), five rebounds, and nine assists while Paolo Banchero had 30 points (9-17 FG) and seven rebounds. Anthony Black came off the bench for 17 points (7-10 FG) while Wendell Carter Jr. put up a solid 12 points (4-10 FG) and 10 rebounds. No other Magic scored in double digits.
The Magic’s stifling defense won out on the Lakers rotation tonight. They knew that there’s no stopping the likes of Luka and LeBron, so they focused their energies on ensuring everyone else was stopped. This worked very well, as the non-Big Three performances in this loss were genuinely tragic.
The Lakers are now just half a game ahead of the Memphis Grizzlies for the No. 4 seed in the standings. The Magic will hope to keep climbing their standings, as they have a 33-38 record which is good enough for the No. 8 seed in the East.
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