The Los Angeles Lakers are feeling the heat after another blown lead that led to a loss against the Oklahoma City Thunder.
Los Angeles collapsed last week after building a 26-point lead, and this time L.A. lost a 19-point lead. LeBron James did not play in both games because of differing injuries, but the Lakers still have more talent on paper as the oldest team in the league against the youngest team in the Thunder.
Head coach Frank Vogel has received plenty of criticism because of his responsibilities for keeping the players in check and leveraging his players to deploy strong lineups and rotations, but that hasn’t always been the case despite injuries to key personnel in Trevor Ariza, Kendrick Nunn and Talen Horton-Tucker.
Vogel explained after the game how L.A. has to stop being perfectionists and collect the wins they need to accumulate.
“We all want to win every game badly. We want to be perfect right now. We have big-picture patience, but small-picture sense of urgency to get this right right away and to win these games in the short term,” Vogel said. “We fell short tonight. It’s disappointing, but we’ll get back to work tomorrow, look at the film and get better from it.”
Vogel said the Lakers should have won the game because the Thunder, now holding a 2-6 record on the year, have only defeated L.A. this season.
Los Angeles has championship aspirations, but losing to the Thunder twice, a team on a completely different tier in terms of expectations and talent, is simply worrisome, with or without James.
