From being one of the top favorites to win an NBA champion before the season started to fighting an uphill battle for a spot in the play-in tournament. That’s the story of this season’s Lakers.

Six-game losing streak during the most important part of the year when every game counts does not help with that. Carmelo Anthony admits that it is not what the players expected to experience.

“I think that’s the difficult part, to be honest, keeping everybody together, not saying that we’re not but it can be a difficult task of keeping guys together right now coming down to the end of the season, the end of the stretch understanding the situation that we’re in,” Anthony said after the Denver game.

“Guys can easily start checking out. You haven’t seen that, I know I haven’t seen that from guys at least when I’m around them in practice on the bus on the plane. I haven’t seen anybody giving up.

“It’s a feeling that we never thought that we were going to experience or will experience but it’s here and there’s nothing we can do about it at this point. Look it in the face and deal with it and embrace it.”