Locked On Lakers - Daily Podcast On The Los Angeles Lakers - Disaster: Luka Leaves With Hamstring Injury, Lakers Blown Out by Thunder 139-96
Episode Date: April 3, 2026You know it's a bad night when the final score of a 45-point loss isn't the worst part. Or even close to it. The Lakers lost Luka Dončić to a hamstring injury early in the third quarter. He went s...traight to the locker room, clearly in pain, and the Lakers said he would undergo an MRI Friday before the game was even over. That's very, very quick and a worrisome sign. The Lakers have about a week before the end of the regular season, and about two before the first round of the playoffs begins. Any type of hamstring injury is concerning, and one this close to the postseason is scary, scary, scary. And not for nothing, Luka needs to play one more game to qualify for postseason awards. There is a very good chance now it doesn't happen. Needless to say, the Lakers and Lakers fans will be on edge until some clarity is found on Luka's injury. Oh, and Austin Reaves was clearly battling some sort of injury to his lower back/side. As for the game itself, the Lakers got their butts kicked in every conceivable way. That's the long and short of it. 139-96. But aside from all that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you enjoy the play? HOSTS: Andy and Brian Kamenetzky SEGMENT 1: Luka injured as the Lakers are destroyed in Oklahoma City. SEGMENT 2: What happens now? SEGMENT 3: Can the Lakers stay in the top four? Everydayer ClubIf you never miss an episode, it’s time to make it official. Join the Locked On Everydayer Club and get ad-free audio, access to our members-only Discord, and more — all built for our most loyal fans. Click here to learn more and join your team’s community: https://lockedonpodcasts.com/everydayerclub Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors! TurboTax This year you’re getting a major upgrade — Intuit TurboTax now has in-person locations nationwide. Visit http://TurboTax.com/local to book your appointment today. QuoMake this the year where no opportunity - and no cutsomer - slips away.Try Quo for free plus get 20% off your first 6 months when you go to http://Quo.com/lockedonnba. RobinhoodYou’re no longer just a spectator. Play by play. You decide. Trade Every Play with Robinhood.Now available across the U.S. Download the Robinhood app now to begin. Futures and cleared swaps trading involves significant risk and is not appropriate for everyone. Event contracts are offered by Robinhood Derivatives, LLC., a registered futures commission merchant and swap firm. 5-Hour ENERGY Have your cake & drink it too. Birthday cake-flavor is back, no fork needed. Vanilla-y cakey flavor, caffeinated kick, and no sugar. It's party time. Order Now at 5-hourENERGY.com or Amazon. Indeed Listeners of this show get a $75 Sponsored Job Credit to help give your job the premium placement it deserves at http://Indeed.com/podcast Gametime Today's episode is brought to you by Gametime. Download the Gametime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDON for $20 off your first purchase. Terms and conditions apply. FanDuel Today's episode is brought to you by FanDuel. During the tournament FanDuel is offering$300 back in Bonus Bets every day for ten days. Visit https://FANDUEL.COMto get started — Play Your Game. FANDUEL DISCLAIMER: 21+ in select states. First online real money wager only. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable free bets that expires in 14 days. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG (CO, IA, MD, MI, NJ, PA, IL, VA, WV), 1-800-NEXT-STEP or text NEXTSTEP to 53342 (AZ), 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat (CT), 1-800-9-WITH-IT (IN), 1-800-522-4700 (WY, KS) or visit ksgamblinghelp.com (KS), 1-877-770-STOP (LA), 1-877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY), TN REDLINE 1-800-889-9789 (TN) Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
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A disastrous night for the Lakers as Luca Dantich leaves early in the second half with a hamstring injury.
He's going to get an MRI on Friday.
And oh, by the way, the Lakers lose by 45.
We'll unpack it all next.
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Your daily Los Angeles Lakers podcast, part of the Locked on Podcasts network, your team every day.
Thanks to everybody for joining Locked on Lakers.
I'm Brian Kemenetsky with Andy Kemenetsky.
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You know it is a bad night, Andy, when the losing by 45 in a highly anticipated match
between the Lakers and the Oklahoma City Thunder isn't even close to the worst thing that happened
on Tuesday, I'm sorry, Thursday night.
This was a disastrous evening for the Lakers.
Final score 139 to 96, but like I said, that is not what anybody is thinking about or talking about,
at least in the immediate aftermath.
It is Luca Dajic who left the game with a hamstring injury early in the third quarter
and obviously did not return.
The Lakers announced before the game was even over, which is quick.
and we'll talk about what it might mean that Luca is going to get an MRI on Friday,
and then they'll obviously release more information after that.
This is not good, Andy.
Not good.
It's crazy.
March ended on such an incredibly high note for this team.
Luca Donchich won, is consecutive, correct?
Western Conference player of the month.
Month awards. He was nominated for a defensive player of the month award, which until today, Thursday,
when this was announced by the league that Luke had been one of the nominees, Brian and I have
been covering the Lakers and the league for like 20 years. I had no idea this existed.
Not a clue. There was such a thing as a defensive player of the month. But the fact that Luca Dantzic,
who has been savaged for a lot of his career
and has been controversial in the MVP race,
which he may be out of now because he is one game.
We'll get to some of the implications of this injury beyond even just MVP.
The irony and in a lot of ways just how limitless the possibilities felt
were embodied by Luca being nominated for this defensive award,
J.J. Reddick was nominated for Coach of the Month.
There's been a lot of growing buzz about what the Lakers could potentially do in the playoffs.
Luca rising in the MVP race, all of that stuff.
You know, LeBron adjusting and driving to this new role.
We are 48 hours into April.
Woof.
April sucks.
So, you know, there are, I mean, there's just a massive list of implications.
from this.
The MVP thing was, you know, this was intended to be or built up to be perhaps, you know,
an opportunity for Luca to make a statement about the NBA.
All of that went out the window even before the injury just based on how the Lakers were
getting pasted in this game.
Frankly, I mean, before the injury, Luca was not playing particularly well either.
SGA wasn't dominant in this game, but it was obviously better than Luca and the thunder
just blowing out the Lakers
kind of, I think,
would have ended that debate anyway.
But the larger question now
is whether or not Luke is going to be able to play enough games
to qualify for any awards, whether the first
team all NBA
and any of that stuff. The playoffs
or the regular season ends
in a little over a week.
The Lakers, he would have to play
one more game.
This was his 64th game.
He would need to play one more.
to qualify for that 65 game threshold,
and it needs to be somewhere,
I think about 20 minutes for it to count.
So you have that,
and then the bigger thing becomes the postseason,
which is about two weeks away,
slightly more than two weeks away,
like two weeks in a day,
give or take,
depending on when the Lakers open
if they open on a Saturday or Sunday.
So, you know, hamstrings are,
tricky to say the least.
And I am, you know, we do not know what it is.
It is going, there's going to be an MRI again on Friday.
There will be some sort of diagnosis on that.
But it's rare when you get that kind of, of pull that it's not a week, a couple weeks or something like that.
Maybe he's, we get super lucky in his day to day.
It is reasonable.
It is not, you know, sky is falling clickbait to say that the, certainly the rest of
rest of the regular season.
And then the first round of the playoffs for Luca is threatened by what we saw on Thursday.
Hopefully not, but it's on the table for sure.
Well, some perspective from Jeff Stotz on Twitter at in street clothes.
He's considered one of the premier sports injury guys and he logs all this stuff.
He's been on the show before.
He is an expert on sports injuries, and particularly the NBA.
he tweeted out, quote, still a lot of details to sort through regarding Don Chich's hamstring injury,
but there's a lot on the line. This season, the average time loss for nondescript hamstring strains,
that being we don't know all the details yet. In the NBA has been 22 days, which he said is roughly nine games.
That's higher than the historical averages of 12.1 days, roughly five games. Five games would obviously take Luca out of the regular season
in the grand scheme of things. Who cares?
cares. I mean, there could be seating. Who cares? Yeah, there could be seeding implications,
but right now, until we know Lucas situation, seed is the least of their concern, because
if they don't have Luca, I don't care if they somehow end up the one seed. They ain't going to be
long for this ride. So it's interesting, too. Luca, like I said, was not playing well at all
before the injury. He was in a little under 26 minutes, three of 10 from the field for 12 points.
seven assists against six turnovers, one of seven from behind the arc.
I thought his shot selection in this game was actually pretty bad.
There are so many aspects of the game itself.
Yeah.
Well, the reason I'm bringing this up in particular right now with Luca isn't
necessarily for the game analysis that we're going to get into,
given that he was perhaps dealing with this heading into the game,
certainly dealing with it in the first half because JJ said after the game that they evaluated him,
they medically cleared him, Lucas said he wanted to go back in, and then eventually it got worse and he left.
I wonder how much of this he was dealing with in this game that led to the shots that often seemed hurried and settled,
maybe because he didn't feel the type of burst that he would need to get into the pain or to keep defenders on his hips,
anything like that.
But some of the turnovers that he had were like pretty much everyone in this team,
a lot of unforced stuff.
Like from top to bottom, not a single Laker played well in this game.
And you wonder how much, especially with what we know about Luca now,
how much that was affecting him before the game even started as the game progressed.
But things were going poorly before it reached this wholly bleep,
what's next moment.
Yeah.
So, I mean, if you want to take a look at the, at the standings, and again, we'll talk
about the game a little bit because it's not wholly irrelevant what happened here,
particularly now that with this injury, at least the statistical probability of the Lakers
finishing fourth instead of third, certainly goes up.
I don't think you can concede that yet just based on who the Lakers play down the stretch.
but, you know, so when you look at the standings,
the Lakers finish play on Thursday a game up on Denver.
Denver's won seven in a row.
They're playing quite well.
So that's a game lead for the Lakers,
which functionally is two games because they own the tiebreaker.
Lakers have five games left,
one against the tanking Dallas team,
one against the tanking Utah team.
They've got Phoenix.
They've got Oklahoma City again,
and who am I forgetting, Andy?
Golden State.
Golden State, who are certainly obviously trying to play their way.
Well, actually, Golden State isn't going to be able to get into the nine seed.
No.
So who's to say, Steph is trying to play.
Like, Steph is looking to play out as many of the rest of the regular season games
they can for nothing, no other reason than to try to get enough rhythm to get them out of the play-in.
They actually have had very little luck historically in the play-in itself.
the warriors are not very good regardless.
I wouldn't treat them as a tanker because they want to win,
but they may function as a tanking team because they're just not very good.
So I look at this as three games against teams that they certainly could beat without Luca.
And then Phoenix will see,
and obviously Oklahoma City is a challenge.
But that could be enough to hold on to the three.
it will almost certainly be enough to hold on to the four.
The Lakers have a two and a half game lead on Houston,
which is functionally a three and a half game lead given the tiebreakers.
So essentially, if the way Lakers win another game this season,
they'll almost certainly finish in the four.
That's a big deal.
I bet Dallas would like to help them.
Yeah, no, right.
I mean, it's helpful to have a team.
I'd be like, no, seriously.
I mean, I don't even know if Utah is going to field a team for that last.
They might not.
They might not.
And so, you know, all of this is, all of this is relevant.
And, you know, the, the, the, the Lakers ought to be able to open on their home floor.
They do not need to rush Luca back to, you know, stay out of the play in, to, you know, make sure they make the playoffs to go from five to four, which would be a really big deal in terms of the difference between starting that series on the road versus starting at home.
So next, let's start talking about what the rest of the regular season could look like.
Then we'll obviously start breaking into what happened in this game because it was a disaster before Luca got hurt.
So all that's next.
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The injury news going into the game actually was encouraging because while Marcus Smart missed
his sixth game, he is expected to return perhaps as early as Sunday.
against the Mavericks.
We'll see what all that looks like.
But the Lakers even saying,
hey, there's a chance he could be on the floor
before the end of the weekend
is for people like us
who have been kind of getting nervous
about his status
and worrying if this injury could be
potentially lingering
or more problematic
than it was initially thought.
That was really good news.
It was all downhill from there.
Before Luca got hurt,
Austin Reeves did something to his sort of side, lower back.
JJ referred to it as an intercostal type injury.
I don't know if that was the official diagnosis.
That's just JJ showing off the vocabulary.
I actually did hurt an intercostal rib thing when I was in college,
or right after college and it was miserable.
So he left, he did leave the floor at one point and go back into the locker room to get checked out.
he was able to come back into the game.
Like everyone else, Austin did not have a good night.
Austin actually, Austin in the beginning.
I was going to say, like, to be clear, Austin, just so people do not misinterpret this.
Austin is not the reason that they fell into the whole like the sole reason, but he was one of the, he had a starring role.
He had four turnovers, I think, in the first five minutes.
all of them
unforced, a couple of them just
really lazy passes,
a couple bad defensive sequences.
He just was completely off
to start this game.
And those turnovers played
a very big role
in not just putting them
in a hole, but also just
setting a tone in this game where
we have not seen this for a while.
The Lakers, it's not just that they
got blown out. Like, Brian and I have covered championship teams. Championship teams, and I'm not
saying the Lakers are, I'm just saying, as the high mark comparison, championship teams every now and
then get their asses handed them. Like even in the playoffs, we have seen that before. The Lakers,
though, just got on tilt in this game so quickly in ways that they seemed completely forget just
unable to fix and iron out. They, they seem like what the hell is happening. They just were
knocked off their game so quickly on both sides of the ball. The offense and the defense just
completely evolved. So much was happening on the perimeter because they seemed unable to just
either penetrate or pass the ball inside.
It was like in the the opening,
I believe 24 points the Lakers had,
11 of them were at the line.
Like other than getting to the line,
they were having trouble getting anything going at all
and they could not defend to save their lives.
Well,
we'll get back to the injury stuff here in a minute
as long as we're sort of on the game now.
I mean,
it's they've played a lot of good teams of late
and have played very well against those teams.
But this was obviously a highly motivated Oklahoma City team that is more or less intact.
They didn't have Alex Caruso who's sick.
But we said going in, like this was going to be a challenge just because of the way that the thunder can defend.
I mean, their offense has been kind of mid over the last month or so.
But their defense is off the charts.
And when they're particularly when they're, you know, fully engaged, fully motivated and all that kind of stuff.
That's exactly what we saw.
The Lakers just had a tremendous amount of trouble getting into basic offensive sets
and trying to run what they were doing.
It was almost difficult to tell what they were trying to do
and what exactly Oklahoma City was doing other than putting it out on the floor a lot of very aggressive,
very physical defenders.
Lakers missed a bunch of shots early when they didn't turn the ball over,
then they did miss.
You can't give up possessions against the team as good as Oklahoma City.
Forget the other side, forget the opportunities in transition then that the Oklahoma City gets and whatever.
The sheer lack of attempts at the basket are enormously distra.
If Oklahoma City didn't score a point off of LA's turnovers in the first quarter, and by the way, they did.
But even if they didn't, just robbing yourselves of the attempts at the bucket is a recipe for failure against a team that's that good.
Here are some of the stats in this game that break down not just the ways that the Lakers lost this game,
but the ways that you will truly lose a game to the Oklahoma City Thunder.
18 turnovers, not all in the first quarter, though it felt that way.
18 turnovers in which OKC converted into 24 points,
32 OKC fast break points,
64 OKC points in the paint.
OKC had 13 offensive rebounds that they turned into 18 second chance points.
Like I tweeted out during the game at Cam Brothers,
there was some point where the Lakers were down 10 nothing in second chance points.
Like it felt like even when OKC was missing,
they were still winning.
Oh, yeah.
And the Lakers got lost defensively on so many scramble possessions.
Like Luke Conard stood out to me as somebody that tonight just was completely lost defensively,
like not staying with the guy that clearly he needed to,
but he had a, he just jumped out of me as the guy that maybe was the most.
But everybody in this game, you can look at.
specific breakdowns. I remember there was a sequence where Luca attempted to jump what he thought
was going to be a passing lane. It ended up a ball fake. The ball got reversed and all of a sudden
OKC was playing five on four. Not that they even needed the advantage. They could have scored five
on seven in this game. But it just everybody had moments. You know, Isaiah Joe hit close to in the
third quarter back to back to back three point.
like pretty close to successive possessions, wide open.
That guy is only out there to shoot threes.
He was wide open.
Well, yeah, I mean, that can't happen.
No, and I, by the third quarter, I mean, especially late,
by the way, I was just looking, you know, kind of as we record the show live on YouTube,
kind of flipping through, see if anything pops up.
I did just see trending right now on Twitter in the United States.
Just the word hamstring.
So just not Luca Donchich hamstring, not Luke, just hamstring.
What happens when you're a Laker, baby.
You can make a muscle.
And everybody knows who's hamstring they're talking about.
That's right.
Hollywood.
All right.
So it wouldn't happen in Dallas, I'll tell you that much.
No.
And like, you know, the defensive breakdowns particularly early.
Like when, even when the Lakers, Oklahoma City was shooting the ball very well.
Lou Dord, I think, made his first four, three point attempts.
Yeah, 14 points in the first quarter.
Yeah, and Shea, for when it was all said and done, I mean,
She needed 28 shots to score, 25 shots to score 28.
He wasn't, you know, living at the line.
He didn't destroy me.
He did it in 30 minutes, but he didn't destroy the lake.
Like, it wasn't like just a question of Shea annihilated them.
When they managed to play decent defense,
Oklahoma City hit the shot anyway.
When they didn't manage to play good defense, Oklahoma City hit the shot anyway.
But the part that I think was...
Jay's control over the offense, though, was incredible.
It was great.
Shea was great.
I'm just saying it wasn't like he was, you know, he scored 52 points on, you know,
21, Shuntlet, and you just bucket after bucket after bucket after bucket.
The problem for the Lakers was certainly with Shea,
and, you know, Chet and whoever, you know, all up and down.
Lakers could not keep Oklahoma City out of the pain.
They could not prevent that initial first step to get people in the pain.
Now everybody's moving.
Everybody's trying to rotate.
They worked very quickly against, you know, Lakers switches and some of these defensive adjustments they want to try to make
and really didn't allow the Lakers to get into them.
So it was just a really aggressive and solid.
game plan for Oklahoma City and the Lakers were on the wrong foot for the entire game.
So we'll break down a little bit more of what this kind of represents going forward,
what the Lakers need to do, I guess, for the rest of the regular season, all that coming up next.
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So on what was truly,
and aside from that,
Mrs. Lincoln,
how did you enjoy the play kind of night for the Lakers and Lakers fans,
the big question becomes kind of where do you go from here?
Like my initial thought when they were getting their bleeps kicked during the first half was,
okay, now I'm really interested in the rematch because this would be the second time that Oklahoma City this season has absolutely destroyed the Lakers.
And so, you know, they played them very well last year.
The last game that was played, which was without both Luca and Shea, if memory serves,
a little bit harder to kind of tell anything from that,
but it was a much closer game.
So given now especially that the Lakers could have a better chance
of seeing Oklahoma City in a second round matchup should they get that far,
I was really interested in what that rematch was going to look like.
What were the Lakers going to bring to that game on their home floor
after being humiliated again by this team?
Can you show that, you know what?
But we can play with them.
So if we do see them in the playoffs, this is not going to be a five-game series or, you know, or even a four-game series.
That obviously goes out the window with Luca injured.
I would be surprised.
They play again in five days.
I would be very surprised if Luca's on the floor for that game.
Let me take this a step further because I don't think surprised is actually the correct emotion for this.
unless the MRI comes back and it says your hamstring is fine.
This was all psychosomatic.
Get your bleak together, Luca.
I will be angry if he plays in this game because it seems wholly irresponsible
for Luca given the stakes moving forward with the playoffs.
And this team ain't going nowhere.
No. Forget just Luca like it unavailable. If Luca's compromised, they are not likely going anywhere.
If Luca- It's certainly not a deep. I mean, could I still see them beating Houston in the first round or something like that if that's who they get?
Right now it looks most like the Lakers would get Houston in the first round if they drop into that three seed. There still is a chance that they can stay, I'm sorry, as the four seed.
it is not a foregone conclusion that they're going to drop down one more.
They do have a cushion over Denver and enough soft games that, you know,
unless, especially if Denver loses a game between now and the end of the season,
the Lakers absolutely could still finish third,
in which case they'd probably get Minnesota in the first round.
And again, could they beat Minnesota without Luca?
Sure.
Does it get a lot more difficult?
Yeah.
Although the wolves may not have Jaden McDaniels.
He is injured right now, and that's a big piece of what they're looking to do with how they are expected to have ant back through by the playoffs.
Right.
But Jaden McDaniels either at half strength or absent is a big blow to the wolves.
But Luca has no business whatsoever.
If this was bad enough that he couldn't finish this game,
not just because JJ waved the white flag.
And if we don't address it in this show,
we can maybe address it for the shorter show on Friday.
I've seen some comments, whether in the chat or also, you know,
the comments section also on Twitter at Cambrothers,
questioning whether or questioning why Luca was even back in the game after the half in the first place,
given how big the Lakers were down.
And this was something that needed to be evaluated.
You could have similar questions about Austin as well.
Like I actually at one point thought Austin was, I thought he had signaled for a sub to come out.
And maybe I'm wrong.
Maybe it just took a little while.
Well, I think he did in the first time.
I think he did.
Okay.
And then he went straight to the locker room.
Right.
You know, to get looked at.
Well, when I saw him signal, it took a little while before he was eventually off the floor.
And maybe the, right.
I could be wrong about that.
But I just, I'm not sure.
Well, we both saw the same thing, if nothing else.
But, uh, Luca has no business being on the floor on Tuesday at all.
Like none.
It would be whatever you think of Luca getting back into this game and for what it's worth,
JJ said they checked him out.
He was cleared.
It is typically up to players to make their own decision.
I understand the argument that maybe he needed to be overridden for his own good,
given the true lack of probability that they were going to come back in this game.
They were not going to back to win.
This is a medical staff that is not exactly known for throwing caution to the wind.
Like they have a reputation around the league as being overly cautious.
So you can argue that they should have just overruled Luca,
but I am willing to bet they were not cavalier about this.
And that doesn't make the decision right, but there's a difference.
We'll maybe break it down for Friday.
but like it's I um yeah you look at at this I mean another interesting wrinkle of it just in terms of like the sort of the season long conversation that we've all been having about this stuff is that uh aunt now we mentioned anthony edwards can't win uh is ineligible for postseason awards if luka doesn't play we mentioned this at the beginning of the show but if lucca doesn't play another game in the regular season he is ineligible so now like
Basically, 80% of the stars in the league are ineligible for postseason awards.
It is yet another reminder of why this needs to change, why it is going to change.
The notion that Luca, because he played 64 games instead of 65, is somehow not worthy of a first team all NBA, not is...
You're not excited about a 2026 MVP, Jake LaRavia.
I played 82 games.
I mean, honestly, he is closer to third team all NBA than you'd like to think.
Like, they're just, there aren't, I, someone will do a count of just like literally how many players are even eligible for this year.
Well, and here's the thing, too.
It also, SGA was trending towards winning this thing anyway, but if he wins this thing,
thing in a way that feels like default, that sucks for him because he's a great player.
And you don't want his MVP, you can debate whether or not you think it should have been
Wendy or Luca or Yokech or whoever, but you don't want it to be remembered as the MVP that
SGA won because Hunger Games took out the rest of the NBA and he was the only guy eligible.
And I don't think it'll happen with the SGA because like his numbers are just,
that good and like you know of course he'll have to beat wemby and he'll have to beat
uh yokech and whatever but when you start getting me though only has one more game i
believe sure because he no you're right thursday against the clippers i he's close if it's
close he's close and you know wemby has made no secret about how he wants to win mb that matter yokech
is close yeah no they're all close except for shay um like fortunately shay's candidacy sort of stands on it's
But you are going to find this.
I know that's not what you're saying.
But like you're where you really will see it is second team all NBA, third team
all NBA where guys who no question probably a night very nice seasons are but you just
like really are going to make some of these things.
So we'll talk a little bit more obviously Friday afternoon assuming the Lakers release
something whenever the MRI results are released, whether that's Friday afternoon, whether
it bleeds into Saturday, whatever it is.
Whenever it happens, we will make sure to update you here
and give you as much analysis about what it means.
Again, just a terrible night for the Lakers
that they hope isn't catastrophic when it's all said and done.
There's a big difference between the two.
Locked on Lakers on YouTube is where you're going to hang out with over 38,000 subscribers.
We'll see everyone next time.
