Without a miracle, the Los Angeles Lakers eventually lost to the Phoenix Suns on the road, falling early on the way to the team's eighteenth championship.
In fact, today's game for the Lakers is more like a dying breath before the end of life, which was closed when they lost at home to the New Orleans Pelicans last week; going back further, or when LeBron James sprained his ankle, everything is over; further on, maybe when Anthony Davis stepped on the feet of Jazz player Gobert, everything is over; and further on, or when the team was crushed by the epidemic, everything is over.
And in the end, going back further, or when the Lakers exchanged three players and a first-round pick for Westbrook last summer, it was doomed to today's solution, but no one believed it, because there have always been people who have regarded theoretical possibilities as a life-saving straw.
In the days that followed, there will still be a lot of discussion about the Lakers and the season they have experienced, but it is estimated that no one will talk about the Lakers in the 2021-22 season as a contender.
Before today's game, team coach Vogel said in an interview, "We are now a backwater battle, our season is not over. ”
After 48 minutes, the Lakers fell into the water en masse, and no one was spared.
In this game, from the perspective of personal data, the Lakers core players have almost no shortcomings, Westbrook 28 points, thick eyebrow brother 21 points, and even Reeves also got 18 points. But the last laugh was Phoenix's Suns, who ended the Lakers for two consecutive years under Booker
"It's a season we didn't finish," Carmelo Anthony said.
While meeting the league's first-ever Suns without James, the Lakers face a complete lack of play-off qualification if the Spurs win and lose. In fact, they already knew how to play this game, and the Spurs had already taken a double-digit lead in another game when they warmed up. "It is better to hope that the other party loses than to fight and win", which is the consensus of the Lakers before the game.
Next, the Lakers team still has suspense to solve.
James has missed four of his last five games with a sprained left ankle, but if he wants to compete for the top scorer, he must play 70 percent of the season to qualify for this honor. With three games left in the season, he is two games away from that percentage.
Winning the Scoring King would be a consolation prize in every sense, for a team with a championship hopefully into the season and for all-Star-level players and future Hall of Famers.
However, such an award cannot erase the Lakers' scars this season, as the local media in Los Angeles said, "The Lakers have never formed any real cohesion", "the manager used 39 different starting lineups to get rid of the impact of injuries and losses to explain everything".
Looking back, Davis's injury before the All-Star Game was fatal to the Lakers, who have only won four games since then, and it's worth mentioning that James averaged 46 points per game during that time.
In the eyes of some people, James cut high scores, the Lakers won, this is the team's remaining hope this season, the Lakers wait until the thick eyebrow brother returns, they have the opportunity to enter the playoffs, they can still reach the peak at the right time, but looking forward to, looking forward to, looking forward to is not a peak, but a new trough.
"We just had a disconnected season," Vogel said. "We were all disappointed."
It's all over, and the Lakers' experiment this season has officially failed.