Things didn’t go well for the Lakers against the Suns. Not only did they lose in blowout fashion, but they played even worse than the 125-108 score indicates. Los Angeles got run out of the gym late in the second quarter and they never recovered.
Luka Dončić, who has been playing at an All-NBA level all year long, had one of the worst 38-point performances you’ll ever see. Sure, he scored in bunches, but he had nearly double-digit turnovers, was a cone on defense and never helped give LA any spark in the second half.
After the loss, Luka took complete accountability for his play in the disappointing defeat.
“That was my fault,” Dončić said. “No way I can have 9 turnovers in the game. In that second quarter, instead of just giving me the shots, instead of shooting the ball, I felt like I was trying to get involved, but there’s no way I should have nine turnovers.”
While nine turnovers are a season high for Luka, he tends to turn the ball over. Dončić had eight turnovers against the Jazz and leads the Lakers with 4.3 turnovers per game.
The silver lining here is that Luka is embracing taking ownership. He was far from an outlier as most Lakers had an awful game, but as a leader, it’s good to hear him taking responsibility.
It wasn’t just Luka playing badly, the Suns had a lot to do with it. It’s impossible to stop Luka, but they did irritate and frustrate him, which led to his subpar performance.
“I feel like definitely it was a different defense than other teams and kind of trying to let me go score instead of creating for others,” Dončić said. “So it was kind of confusing, but, like I said, it just can’t happen.”
The Lakers are Luka’s team and they’ll only go as far as he takes them. That means he has to play well and balance his decision-making between when to be aggressive and look for his shot and when to get others involved. Against the Suns, he didn’t do a good job of this.
Rui Hachimura only got one shot attempt in this contest and Luka took a whopping 26, which was only two away from his season-high. That doesn’t seem like a recipe for sustainable success.
Luckily, this is just one game. There will be plenty of opportunities in this upcoming road trip to show that Luka and the Lakers are as good as their record indicates and that this one loss was an anomaly.