The Lakers have no one to blame but themselves so far against the Nuggets

Let’s examine why the Lakers lost Game 2 against the Nuggets and why they need to look in the mirror before Game 3.

The Los Angeles Lakers found themselves in prime position on Monday night to finally beat the Denver Nuggets. After losing nine straight to them, they could both tie up the series and take home court advantage.

The Lakers were up 20 points with a little over nine minutes left and absolutely humming with confidence, while the Nuggets had their heads down and were unsure what had happened.

However, after that point, everything changed. The Nuggets cut the Lakers' lead to a manageable ten points by the end of the third quarter and then went on to win the game on a Jamal Murray buzzer-beater shot.

The toughest pill to swallow about the loss — more so than losing a crucial game that the team had firmly in control — was how they lost the game. It wasn’t a game that Denver played particularly well in, especially in the third quarter.

There was certainly some talk after the game about the officials. LeBron James was notably upset with some of the calls including a poor review decision on D’Angelo Russell, but that was, in my opinion, just a symptom of what happened earlier in the game.

Let’s take a closer look at the root cause of the Lakers’ loss.

It’s certainly frustrating and continues a trend we saw last playoffs: the Lakers simply cannot maintain their level of play or adapt on the fly like the Nuggets can.

However, a silver lining is that the team can use at least part of their performance to know they can stick with and outplay this Nuggets team for long stretches of the game and then maintain it if they stick with those principles.

LeBron James, Austin Reaves, and Anthony Davis — along with Coach Darvin Ham — spoke on flipping the page to Game 3 and channeling what they learned from this loss into the next one.

Only time will tell if they do but the finger has to start with pointing in the mirror because the Lakers have no one else to blame but themselves for their 0-2 hole. We’ll find out tonight if they can start to dig out of it.

Dr. Rajpal Brar, DPT has a doctorate in physical therapy from Northern Arizona University, is a youth basketball coach at the U12 level and runs his own in-person and online sports medicine and performance business, 3CB Performance, in West LA and Valencia, CA in which he further combines his movement expertise and fitness training.

Combining his background in biomechanics, movement science, and learning science - he consults in a variety of sports including basketball on movement mechanics and skill acquisition. Brar is additionally training at UCLA’s mindful awareness research center (MARC and analyzes the Lakers from a skills & medical perspective for Silver Screen and Roll and on his own YouTube Channel. You can follow him on Twitter at @3cbPerformance.