The Lakers (34-22) are currently in first place in the Pacific division, and tied for fifth but just a game out of third in the Western Conference. Sure, they\u2019re not replicating the halcyon days of the Shaquille O\u2019Neal-Kobe Bryant or Showtime eras, but they\u2019re still in a pretty good spot with 26 games left in the regular season.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s the macro view. When we put a magnifying glass to this team, it becomes apparent that they have some glaring issues. Most worrying of all is their propensity to get blown out by most of the good teams they face. An incredible 19 of their 22 losses this season have come by double digits.<\/p>\n
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On Sunday night, they were smacked at home by the Celtics 111-89. TheLakers<\/a> trailed by 10 at halftime in this one and never got the deficit under seven in the second half. Paired with a 21-point loss in Boston in early December, their biggest rivals swept the Lakers this season.<\/p>\n Even worse, it happened in front of a bunch of Lakers legends. They were present to honor former coach Pat Riley, whose new statue was unveiled at halftime.<\/p>\n James Worthy was one of those Lakers icons who was in attendance, and he didn\u2019t hold back his opinion of how the Lakers played. \u201cThis game, to me, wasn\u2019t about stats\u2026 No heart. Weak,\u201d he said<\/a>.<\/p>\n Worthy pointed out that the Lakers, who finally hadLuka Doncic<\/a>, LeBron James, and Austin Reaves on the court together, were no match for a Celtics team that still hasn\u2019t gotten Jayson Tatum back.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n \u201cNo Tatum, you\u2019re at home, you\u2019re in fifth place, you\u2019re trying to move up,\u201d said Worthy. \u201cYou show no respect for the uniform.\u201d<\/p>\n The Lakers got outscored from the 3-point line, outscored in the paint, and they had 11 fewer assists and 11 fewer rebounds than the Celtics. Jaylen Brown and Payton Pritchard both scored over 30, while Luka was the highest scorer for the Lakers with 25. They were tied after the first quarter and then got outscored in every quarter after that.<\/p>\n Playing like this in front of Riley, Worthy, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Magic Johnson, and so many other Lakers greats was a reminder of how far this team has to go to reclaim its once lofty status in the league. This year\u2019s Lakers don\u2019t even have a positive point differential.<\/p>\n There are no analysts who are taking them seriously for anything other than a first-round playoff exit. The upcoming schedule will show if this team has any pulse whatsoever, because just as they faced the Celtics without Tatum, their next few games will be against the Franz Wagner-less Magic, the Dillon Brooks-less Suns, and the Warriors without Steph Curry.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n The Lakers have been able to use injuries as an excuse for much of the season. But with their big three now healthy for the stretch run, there\u2019s no reason they can\u2019t make some noise.<\/p>\n Unless Worthy is right and they have no heart, that is. Let\u2019s see if they respect the uniform when they play on Tuesday night.<\/p>\n The post \u201cNo Respect for the Uniform\u201d: James Worthy Rips Lakers After Their 111-89 Loss to Jayson Tatum-Less Celtics<\/a> appeared first on The SportsRush<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Lakers (34-22) are currently in first place in the Pacific division, and tied for fifth but just…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":485970,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[11654,8731,13034,8725,29175,5488,3013,3014,355,59097,99,3781,43589,4202,17814],"class_list":{"0":"post-485969","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-austin-reaves","9":"tag-boston","10":"tag-celtics","11":"tag-james-worthy","12":"tag-jaylen-brown","13":"tag-jayson-tatum","14":"tag-lebron-james","15":"tag-luka-doncic","16":"tag-nba","17":"tag-payton-pritchard","18":"tag-sports","19":"tag-steph-curry","20":"tag-the-lakers","21":"tag-warriors","22":"tag-western-conference"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/485969","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=485969"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/485969\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/485970"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=485969"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=485969"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=485969"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}