The Lakers once again had a disappointing showing on their road trip. This time, the Lakers fell to their biggest rivals, the Boston Celtics. Losing against a historic rival is never a good look, but especially for this Lakers team, which was initially touted as a championship favorite.
LeBron James made his return from injury against the Celtics. But despite the presence of the big three, the Lakers couldn’t get the job done. Russell Westbrook’s role in the team is once again drawing questions, as he underperformed once again. Even NBC Sports Boston made fun of him after the game.
During the game, Westbrook scored just 12 points despite attempting 13 shots and had 3 turnovers. LeBron James and Anthony Davis played better than him, but the Lakers were poor, especially on the defensive end of the court. Fans were unhappy with the Lakers’ performance, voicing their displeasure on social media.
After the game, Westbrook was asked about the Lakers’ poor run of form. And he gave the same response everyone has given, that they haven’t played enough with each other. He also pointed to the fact that the rest of the world has a lot of expectations of them, and the reality is they haven’t had a chance to live up to that.
“I think the reality of it is that everybody on the outside has really high expectations of our team, as they should. But the reality of our team is that we haven’t really played with each other, realistically.”
Via: ClutchPoints
Russ’ comments are unsurprising. But Lakers fans will understandably be frustrated at this point. The NBA season has been going for a month. And while they haven’t gotten a chance to play, they have a lot of talent that should individually be playing at a much higher level than they have.
The Lakers will have to improve quickly, as their road trip across the Eastern Conference continues. At this rate, they will barely make the playoffs, let alone win the championship the way most fans expected them to at the start of the season.
