LOS ANGELES _ They needed this one. They had this one.
LeBron James dunked through two defenders, then nailed a three-pointer over all of them, and suddenly the Milwaukee Bucks were back on their lightning-quick heels, the Lakers leading by two with barely two minutes left.
They stumbled over this one. They blew this one.
Rajon Rondo threw a lousy pass. James backed into a charging foul. Kentavious Caldwell-Pope threw a horrible in-bounds pass. The Bucks made layups. The Bucks hit free throws. The Bucks hit threes. The Bucks made them pay.
On the verge of an energizing victory over the team with the best record in the NBA, the Lakers showed again Friday night how they could finish this season as the biggest disappointment in the NBA with a 131-120 loss at Staples Center.
They ended what was once a splendid evening being outscored 15-2 in those final minutes, and when the bulldozing stopped, it felt not just like the end of a game, but possibly the end of a season.
The Lakers have 20 games remaining, and they are 3{ games out of the Western Conference's eighth and final playoff spot, and they have to jump over two teams to get there, and do you think they can pull it off?
At this point, it appears not. After a perfect chance for a stolen moment was handed away Friday night, it appears this mountain might finally be too high. The light at the end of that 30-32 tunnel might finally be too distant.
How many wins is it going to take to make the playoffs? In the last five years, the eighth seed in the Western Conference has averaged 44 wins. That means the Lakers, with their 30 wins, are going to have to reasonably go 14-6 to get there.
That's 14 wins. In five weeks. With a team that needed three months to record its most recent 14 wins.
Do they have 14 wins in them? From here, it doesn't look like it. At the end of Friday night, it didn't feel like it.
Looking at their schedule, if they beat teams they should beat with James being James and the rest the guys playing decently, they can get 11 wins. That's if everything goes right.
That means they need to pull three extraordinary wins out of their pocket and can they do that? Those three wins would have come in places like Toronto, Utah or Oklahoma City, or at home against the likes of Golden State, Utah, Denver or Boston.
One of those wins could have been Friday night, but in the end, it wasn't, and that hurt.
It hurt because Brandon Ingram had another brilliant game with 31 points, giving him an average of 29 points per game in the five games since the All-Star break.
It hurt because James put on his usual fourth-quarter push to also finish with 31 points, and Rondo was occasionally spectacular with 20 points and nine assists.
And, yeah, It hurt because the Bucks' MVP favorite Giannis Antetokounmpo was held to 16 points with a pressing Lakers defense that finally worked. Except it didn't work on everybody, as Eric Bledsoe scored 31 and Malcolm Brogdon added 21 and they pretty much went to the rim at will.
These Lakers just don't have the focus to put together 48 powerful minutes, or the manpower to finish.
"I really like the way our group competed for most of that game," Lakers coach Luke Walton said. "Against one of the best teams in the league, we really played well. And then, for some reason, we kind of fell apart."
And not only with the kids who have taken so much heat, but with veterans James, Rondo and Caldwell-Pope.
"We had our chances, we had our chances," said James. "Too many breakdowns."
Three turnovers and at least that many defensive breakdowns, all in those final minutes.
The Lakers inconsistent effort was typified in the third quarter.
Ingram had a posterizing dunk over Brook Lopez with 8:18 left in the quarter to give the Lakers a 74-67 lead. Then he hit a jumper, and was a scorching 12 for 14 at the time. Then Antetokounmpo was shut down on a drive and, on the other end, James turned a layup into a three-point play to give the Lakers a 79-67 lead midway through the quarter.
They looked good, then, just as quickly, they looked lost.
Bledsoe, who agreed a four-year, $70-million contract extension before the game, drove through for three layups. Pat Connaughton dunked. Connaughton hit a three- pointer, Ersan Ilyasova scored on a layup. Ingram missed a layup, Bledsoe hit a three-pointer, and with 3:15 left the Bucks led, 83-82.
Back and forth it went until those final minutes of the fourth quarter, and now it's on to Phoenix Saturday to play the tanking Suns.
That will be another must-win game, coming just hours after Friday's must-win-but-didn't game.
