The Lakers led at halftime. The game plan was working. Then, the 12 minutes that have become a season’s nightmare arrived. The result was a Madison-sized meltdown.
NEW YORK –– The first half was a delicate, deceptive promise crafted in the hallowed haze of Madison Square Garden. Ticket prices soared past $500 for nosebleeds, into the thousands for courtside.
Spike Lee wore his Knicks jersey like armor. Tracy Morgan sat nearby, laughing at jokes only he understood.
The debut of NBC's "Sunday Night Basketball" package demanded a show, and Madison Square Garden always delivers.
The Lakers' zone defense flummoxed the Knicks. LeBron James, just hours after being named to a record 22nd All-Star team, moved with purposeful grace.
Luka Dončić piled up stats with casual brilliance. The Lakers led at halftime, 56-52.
They had played well—Dončić bullying his way to 30 points, 15 rebounds, eight assists; James reminding everyone why coaches voted him to his NBA-record 22nd consecutive All-Star Game; the defense rotating, the offense humming.
Hope lived. Hope always lives at halftime.
Then the third quarter began, and hope died.
The Knicks scored a 38-point deluge, including a 15-5 run to close the quarter, in the third. The Lakers mustered 26.
It is a 12-point differential that felt like 30. It is the same story, the same sin, the same self-inflicted wound that has doomed this Lakers season.
Transition baskets leaked. Offensive rebounds were surrendered.
Threes rained down from Shamet, from Brunson, from Anunoby.
The Lakers' lead dissolved, then inverted, swallowed whole by a 90-82 deficit they would never recover from, culminating in a 112-100 defeat.
It is the same story, the same sin, the same self-inflicted wound that has doomed this Lakers season.
Los Angeles did not just have a bad quarter. It was the quarter. The one that has become a haunting, recurring echo in the Lakers' season.
The third quarter. The bogeyman. The black hole.
"We couldn't consistently make shots from the perimeter," James said. "Extra possessions—they got extra possessions, they kicked out for threes and knocked them down. I think that was the game right there."
The numbers are a damning indictment.
The Knicks made 11-of-23 from deep. The Lakers made a paltry 2-of-14.
That is not a disparity; it is an entirely different sport.
Landry Shamet, a bench player, hit three triples in that decisive quarter. OG Anunoby, the defensive stopper, hit one. Jalen Brunson, the Knicks' engine, hit another.
The Garden roared, and the Lakers, per usual when faced with adversity, shrank.
New York snatched 15 offensive rebounds, a relentless barrage of second chances that broke the Lakers' spirit and their scheme.
"They made 11 of them. We were two of 14," head coach JJ Redick said. "The shooting… their shooting killed us and our shooting didn't help us."
"We miss a lot of good looks," Dončić said." They made some great looks."
But this is not about a mere cold streak. The Lakers' lack of energy, effort and identity is alarming.
The Knicks played with a desperate, physical hunger. The Lakers played as spectators.
Josh Hart hunted loose balls. Anunoby turned defense into instant offense. The Lakers, meanwhile, seemed to wait for Dončić or James to conjure a rescue that never came.
The third quarter has become the Lakers' personal horror film, the monster that keeps jumping out no matter how many times they think they've killed it.
Against Cleveland, they surrendered 42 points. Against Washington, they gave up a 29-point lead's ghost in three minutes of "abomination," as Redick called it.
Against New York, it happened again—a possession here, a turnover there, a missed rotation, a blown box-out. Death by a thousand cuts, all delivered in 12 minutes.
New York was the aggressor; Los Angeles played as if they were cruising on a Malibu
The demoralization was complete. For the first time all season, the Lakers lost a game they led at halftime, a stark 17-0 record now stained. The defeat dropped them to 9-11 against teams above .500, a record that whispers "pretender" in a Western Conference gauntlet.
After starting out red hot, the Lakers are struggling against good teams.
Both Ray Charles and Stevie Wonder could see it, too.
In the locker room, the acknowledgment was blunt, pointed inward. Deandre Ayton, who managed 13 points and 5 rebounds, pinpointed the fatal flaw.
"Coming out in the second half, they were making shots and we were missing ours," Ayton said. "You bring the MSG fans involved, it's going to sound like a playoff game."
He confirmed the team had confronted the third-quarter issue directly.
"We definitely pointed that out… it's one of our things we need to pick up," Ayton said.
The absence of Austin Reaves, missing a 19th straight game, was a phantom limb. His 26.5 points per game and his playmaking verve are a glaring void during those stagnant, scoreless stretches.
There have been a few too many times when the offense has just fallen flat for 7, 8 minutes. Reaves represents the offensive safety valve the Lakers have desperately lacked.
Now, the questions loom larger, darker.
The trade deadline whispers grow louder. The standings grow tighter—a slide to seventh in the West is a very real possibility. The road trip ends in Brooklyn, a chance to salvage a 5-3 record, but the damage is psychic as much as statistical.
"We want to continue to try to build," James said. "It's a tough Western Conference… it's been tough all season.
But the toughest opponent, the most consistent foe, is the one that emerges from their own locker room after halftime. The third quarter.
A period of play that has transformed from a strategic interval into a psychological chasm.
The Lakers can diagnose it. They can discuss it.
But as the Garden's lights dimmed on another failed promise, the terrifying truth remained: they have yet to solve it.
The curse of the third quarter lives on, and with it, the ceiling on their season.
Category: General Sports
