On Tuesday night, the Los Angeles Lakers and Denver Nuggets got the 2023-24 NBA regular season underway, with the defending NBA champions playing host to LeBron James and company at Ball Arena in the Mile High City.
Even though there seemed to be a lot of bad blood between these two teams during the summer after the Nuggets swept the Lakers in the Western Conference Finals, Los Angeles struggled to put up a fight against Mike Malone’s squad and were ultimately beat by 12 points.
Two things stuck out more than anything else in the Lakers’ loss to the Nuggets on Tuesday, as it became clear that James’ days of playing over 30 minutes a game might be over and that Anthony Davis can still disappear when his team needs him the most.
James played 29 minutes in the loss to Denver, and Davis failed to score a single point in the second half, which obviously helped lead to the victory for the Nuggets.
Davis disappearing in the second half with his team desperately needing some production out of him offensively sparked quite a reaction out of Stephen A. Smith on ESPN’s “First Take” on Wednesday.
.@stephenasmith says AD’s performance vs. the Nuggets was “atrocious” 😳
“Ladies and gentlemen, you just saw the reason why the Los Angeles Lakers ain’t going to win no championship this year.” pic.twitter.com/Tal1NENw1K
— First Take (@FirstTake) October 25, 2023
Smith believes that Davis’ poor play and the team’s inability to count on him against the best teams in the league will be the reason that the Lakers won’t win a championship this season.
Although it is way too early to make a statement like this because there are 81 more regular-season games to go, this is concerning for the Lakers moving forward, as arguably your best player can’t be shut out in the second half against a team that might be the best in the league.
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