Not much has gone right for the Los Angeles Lakers this season. So in an effort to rally his troops after a blowout loss to visiting Oklahoma City on Friday night, Lakers coach Mike D’Antoni figured he would try to get his beleaguered squad to look forward instead of back.
“Our season starts Sunday,” he said, referring to a date with the Cavaliers at Staples Center.
In that case, the Lakers are undefeated after a 113-93 blowout victory over the Cavs.
With Dwight Howard making a surprising return to the starting lineup after missing the past three games with a torn labrum in his right shoulder, the Lakers jumped out to a 13-4 lead and were never threatened. Cavs coach Byron Scott pulled his starters midway through the fourth quarter.
“You’ve got to give them a lot of credit,” Scott said as his team fell to 9-30.
They came out focused and aggressive from the start. With the young group that we have, you can’t allow a team to get out to a 17- or 18-point lead in the first quarter and expect to try to come back all night long.
“They’ve got too many veterans, too many good players to do that. We didn’t come out with the right frame of mind to start. We started to fight and get ourselves back into the game. But that’s too deep of a hole to dig against a veteran team like that.”
The Cavs did beat the Lakers, 100-94, on Dec. 11 in Cleveland.
But both squads looked a lot different Sunday.
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