The Los Angeles Lakers are free-falling toward the bottom of the NBA standings, and it got worse Wednesday night when they were blown out 133-96 by the Oklahoma City Thunder at Staples Center.
After the game, Lakers rookie forward Kyle Kuzma didn’t hold back when criticizing his team.
“We gave up,” Kuzma told ESPN’s Ohm Youngmisuk after the game. “You could see, they got basket after basket, we had no resistance on them on the defensive end and offensive end. When things got tough, we tried to do it individually, and you can’t do that in this league.
“They took a little lead, and we just went to being selfish on the floor. We didn’t compete on defense. They killed us. … To lose by (nearly) 40, it is pretty embarrassing to be out there.”
Kuzma has been one of the lone bright spots for the Lakers this season. The 27th overall pick in the 2017 NBA Draft is averaging 17.5 points per game on 47 percent shooting through the first 36 games of his career.
Los Angeles, despite its 11-26 record, has been competitive in most of the games that it has lost, but the Lakers have suffered large defeats in their past two games, falling by 37 to the Thunder and by 18 to the Minnesota Timberwolves.
And Kuzma knows they have to fix whatever has caused those blowouts.
“That is not being a Laker,” Kuzma said. “I have only been a Laker for a couple of months, but that’s not it.”
