Los Angeles Lakers suffer a hope-crushing loss in win over Utah Jazz

The Los Angeles Lakers returned home from yet another loss over the weekend to the Golden State Warriors to play the Utah Jazz. Unlike the other losses spanning two weeks, the Lake Show played with much more energy and competed for the full 48 minutes. They would need that same effort taking on the Utah Jazz, who were the hottest team in the NBA not named the Phoenix Suns or the Boston Celtics riding a six-game winning streak.

This was the type of game where writers get challenged. See, the Jazz had complete control of the game with six minutes to go up 92-80 with a fast break going with Donovan Mitchell and Royce O’Neal.

O’Neal turns the ball over and every writer had to start editing their articles on the fly while LeBron James dropped ten straight points to spearhead a ridiculous 20-4 run to eventually take the lead! Here’s seven of them right here!

The Los Angeles Lakers come back (Like again!) to upset the Utah Jazz 106-101. For the first time all season, the Lake Show looked like they are building good defensive habits. Are they going to win a lot of games against good teams without Anthony Davis? That remains to be seen, but if they play hard and compete, no one has to cut the lights out on the season.

The Los Angeles Lakers have something going. Lake Show Life doesn’t know what, but they have something.

The good from the Los Angeles Lakers’ win:

It’s times like these when the staff of Lake Show Life and its readers wonder if the Lakers read these articles and comments when it comes to Anthony Davis. 

There was some pushback in the comment section from the Warriors post-game report about the analysis of contenders allowing LeBron James to get his numbers so Anthony Davis can be phased out of the offense. This writer broke down how LeBron was to blame to make sure that AD was the first option.

• LeBron’s missed free throws sink Los Angeles Lakers to the Warriors

Ronald Agers’ side of things:

"Who’s supposed to be the first option on offense? I’ll wait. What site has stated that AD needs to be established early so he can be engaged to dominate? I’ll wait. Who was the one that wondered if AD had that dog in him to overcome adversity? Can’t take credit for that one…David Grubb."

Big Bossman’s side of things:

"I’ll stick with what I said concerning AD. If AD can’t DEMAND the ball or if the coaching staff can’t DEMAND and run certain plays to get AD the ball down low or in the paint in the 4th quarter that doesn’t have anything to do with Lebron."

No matter which side of the story Lakers fans agree on, Anthony Davis got engaged early and was on fire. He scored 15 points in the first quarter alone on 6-7 shooting! He was beating Rudy Gobert up inside and continued a dominant streak that goes back to the championship season. He finished the night with 17 points on 7-9 shooting.

Sadly, he was the story of the night for totally different reasons due to a horrible injury that Lake Show Life will go into depth later on in the article.

LeBron James could have easily let go of the rope at the magic number of 25 points, but he did compete.

The staff of Lake Show Life had a close eye on LeBron James when AD got injured. There is an ongoing debate about what LeBron’s motivation is these days.

• Is it the 25 points or more streak?
• Is it Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s all-time scoring streak?
• Trying to nab the NBA scoring title?

Notice winning is nowhere on this list which the Lakers haven’t done lately. Even Lakers icon, James Worthy called him out on his leadership on FanSided’s Da Windy City Podcast. 

"“LeBron is the captain, he is the spokesperson in that locker room and that’s where they have to have the meeting of the minds,” Worthy said. “That responsibility does fall on him. Magic Johnson would have that responsibility. Magic would say look guys, we’ve gotta do this, we’ve gotta do that, this is how we are going to do it. A lot of this falls on his shoulders, but a lot of it falls on these veteran players.”"

LeBron was really quiet in the third quarter with only one point after scoring 13 in the first half. Then he started to heat up and found time to dap up Super Bowl Champ Aaron Donald cutting the lead to eight points by the fourth.

Then Hassan Whiteside…doing what he does…got a technical foul jawing with LeBron before the last quarter. Why tug on Superman’s cape? It is common knowledge that talking trash takes this guy to another level players can’t compete with!

LeBron almost matched the Jazz in scoring putting up 15 of his 33 points in crunch time.

Thanks Hassan! Can you do this during a playoff series? The Lakers could get out of the first round if you keep talking!