Luka Doncic, Austin Reaves take blame for Lakers losing to lowly Nets without LeBron James: ‘I played incredibly bad’

March 11, 2025

The Los Angeles Lakers lost to the lowly Brooklyn Nets on Monday (3/10) for their second loss in a row. Even though NBA legend LeBron James didn’t play due to a groin injury, Luka Doncic and Austin Reaves were in the lineup and the Lakers had a 15-point lead early.

However, the Nets outscored the Lakers in the second, third and fourth quarter and won by a final score of 111-108.

After the game, Doncic and Reaves took accountability for their poor performances. Doncic shot 8-of-26 from the field, while Reaves shot 3-of-14.

“I think I should have helped more,” Doncic said. “We got to have the same mentality moving forward. Injuries are going to happen and it’s got to be a next-man-up mentality.”

Added Reaves: “I just thought I played incredibly bad. That’s, really, you know, about as much as I can say about that. It’s frustrating not helping your team win. When Bron’s out, I got to be better and I wasn’t. That’s one of the reasons we lost.”

The Lakers are 40-23 on the season. They are in third place in the Western Conference standings.

However, LeBron is expected to miss one-to-two weeks with his groin injury, so Doncic and Reaves must play better moving forward for Los Angeles to stay afloat.

“Everybody’s got to buy in to helping the team be successful,” Reaves said. “And like I’ve said two or three times already, I’ve got to be better. I mean, we’ll start there with me. I got to be better.”

LeBron wasn’t the only Lakers player to miss the Nets game. Rui Hachimura, Jaxson Hayes and Dorian Finney-Smith were out as well.

Los Angeles head coach JJ Redick didn’t care, though. He thought his team took too many shortcuts against Brooklyn.

“I think it was a very low-level communication game for our team,” Redick said. “I don’t think being short-handed is an excuse for how we played basketball tonight. I think it was just an overall mentality just to take shortcuts tonight. Want to be a good team? You want to win in the NBA? You got to do the hard stuff. We couldn’t even pass to each other. We couldn’t enter our offense, running ball screens literally at half court. Yeah, that’s going to end up in a turnover. I don’t know what we’re doing.”