The Los Angeles Lakers and San Antonio Spurs have already wrapped up their season series. We take an in-depth look at the four games with five takeaways.
The Los Angeles Lakers are just over a quarter of the way through the 2018-19 NBA season. We haven’t even reached Christmas Day yet, but the team has already finished their season series with the San Antonio Spurs.
The Lakers and Spurs played each other twice the second week of the season. Then, just about five weeks later, they played a back-to-back set against each other in a home-and-home.
So, in the first 25 games of the season, the Lakers and Spurs faced off four times. For the most part, these games were very competitive. San Antonio won the season series 3-1, with the most lopsided games coming in the last two meetings in the home and home. The Lakers won by eight at the Staples Center, while the Spurs won by 13 at the AT&T Center.
30 percent of the Lakers losses this season have come against the Spurs. Add in the two games against the Orlando Magic, both losses, and that makes up half of the team’s losses thus far this season. If not for those thorns in the side, the Lakers would be pacing the Western Conference.
The Lakers could have easily been on the positive side of this season series if they had a few breaks go their way. The meltdown in the final matchup was the largest deficit of the four games, but it was yet another game the Lakers looked to have control of, but let get away.
In the super competitive Western Conference, these could be games that the Lakers look back on and regret losing. While some of the variables were out of their control, at least two of the losses were very attainable with a few things cleaned up.
What are some of the things the team could have cleaned up? Let’s take a look back at the season series with five takeaways from the four matchups.