Markieff Morris had a pretty lame excuse for the Lakers’ loss to the Hawks on Saturday and it wasn’t even LeBron’s injury.
LeBron James left the Los Angeles Lakers’ Saturday matchup with the Atlanta Hawks in the second quarter because of what we now know to be a high ankle sprain.
James hit a three from the corner on his severely rolled ankle before leaving the game, never to return. His team wouldn’t be able to get the job done without him and fell to the Hawks by a score of 99-94.
The win was the eighth consecutive for the Hawks, who now find themselves 8-0 under interim head coach Nate McMillan and in the fourth-seed in the Eastern Conference. John Collins finished with 27 points and a season-high 16 rebounds while Trae Young struggled to score but added 14 points and 11 assists.
Markieff Morris says scheduling played a hand in the Lakers’ loss to the Hawks
The Lakers were already without superstar Anthony Davis so losing James to his injury wasn’t ideal. Los Angeles has been trying to stay afloat since Davis has been out and had been doing so mostly thanks to James.
While the game wasn’t exactly a must-win for the Lakers it certainly became more of one for the Hawks, whose win streak is necessary for survival in the jumbled middle pack of the East. Still, Lakers forward Markieff Morris felt like his team had somehow been set up by the league’s scheduling authorities.
“They set us with a trap game, whatever you want to call it. I don’t care how the NBA feel about it,” Morris said after the game.
“It was a trap game playing 20-year-olds at 12 o’clock in the afternoon. They trapped us. We just couldn’t really find it. Me, personally, I find all my shots were short. I end up making some late in the game, but throughout the game just really can’t get over the hump.”
That’s a weird way to say, “LeBron James got hurt.”
This excuse might’ve worked if the Hawks were actually still a bunch of 20-year-olds. Instead, Mr. Morris and the purple and gold lost to Danilo Gallinari, Bogdan Bogdonavic, Rajon Rondo, and others (not to mention Trae Young).
This loss clearly affected Morris differently than the others but the Lakers ought to be just fine.