The Los Angeles Lakers were embarrassed yet again on the hardwood on Monday night as the Toronto Raptors came into town and easily handled the Lakers. While the purple and gold made it look close, the Raptors dominated throughout the game.
Toronto started the game on a 21-2 run and finished the first quarter with a 33-12 lead. It is not every day you see a team with a 21-point difference in the first quarter of a basketball game, but here we are.
The day before, the Lakers allowed the Phoenix Suns to score 48 points in the first quarter, which was the highest-scoring quarter the team has allowed in shot-clock history. With that loss very close in the rear-view mirror, another disheartening fact when viral on Reddit about the team potentially making history once more.
A post on the NBA sub-Reddit received nearly 10,000 upvotes that stated that the 12-point quarter on Monday was the lowest-scoring first quarter for the franchise in the shot-clock era.
Thankfully, while the loss (and the season as a whole) still stings tremendously, this is not true. The Lakers have scored fewer than 12 points in the first quarter plenty of times. In fact, this is the 24th time in the shot-clock era that the Lakers have scored 12 or fewer points in the first quarter.
It is not even like it has been a long time since it happened, either. The Lakers scored 12 points in the first quarter on April 4, 2019 against the Golden State Warriors. In 2016, the Lakers scored 11 points in the first quarter against the New York Knicks.
That is not the lowest-scoring first quarter for the franchise, though.
What is the lowest-scoring first quarter for the Los Angeles Lakers?
The lowest-scoring first quarter for the team in the shot-clock era does make this game look better as the Lakers scored a measly six points against the Chicago Bulls in the first quarter on November 20, 1977. The purple and gold went on to lose that game 102-80.
That Lakers team lost in the first round of the NBA Playoffs in a three-game series against the Seattle Supersonics despite having the best player in the league, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (sound familiar?). This year’s Lakers could very well lose in the Play-In Tournament despite having one of the best players in the league in LeBron James.
While this might not be the lowest-scoring first quarter in team history, there still is something out there for our Laker history buffs. The -21 point differential is the 13th largest losing point differential after the first quarter for LA. Just this season the Lakers have accounted for three of the worst 13 first-quarter point differentials.
Sunday’s loss to the Phoenix Suns ranks second in team history.