Following a disappointing but rather predictable loss against the Bucks, the Lakers fell against a decimated Blazers team that was without Damian Lillard and CJ McCollum.
Los Angeles missed Russell Westbrook due to lower back soreness but the other two superstars LeBron James (30 points) and Anthony Davis (17 points) on the floor. But they were unable to stop Anfernee Simons (29 points) and Jusuf Nurkic (19 points).
Lakers head coach Frank Vogel was disappointed with the result. “Disappointed. Angry,” he said postgame. “It’s a game we got to get. We knew it was a different kind of challenge playing a team that’s decimated like this you get a lot of guys having an opportunity to earn a paycheck honestly, they’re getting opportunities to play that they don’t normally get.
“They played with extra level of confidence and juice. They got two guys on the floor that we knew could beat us in Nurkic and Simons and we didn’t contain them well enough and we didn’t master their energy.”
