LeBron James takes a shot at the officiating after the Lakers’ Game 2 loss
For the Los Angeles Lakers, the Denver Nuggets are that schoolyard bully who keeps beating them up and stealing their lunch money every day.
They just lost to the Nuggets for the 10th time in a row on Monday in Game 2 of their first-round playoff series, 101-99. Of those 10 losses in a row, this one was the worst. They held a 20-point lead in the third quarter, only to give up that lead in big gulps, and their fan base could see a loss coming with plenty of time left.
While Los Angeles did it to itself, LeBron James, who had a solid game overall, felt something was wrong with the officiating and that the officiating was a factor in his team’s loss. After the game, he took a shot at the refs and the replay center the NBA utilizes in New Jersey.
“I don’t understand what’s going on in the replay center, to be honest. … D’Lo (D’Angelo Russell) clearly gets hit in the face on a drive. What the [expletive] do we have a replay center? It doesn’t make sense to me. It bothers me.”
Despite a couple of possibly bad or questionable calls or non-calls, the Lakers only have themselves to blame for being down 0-2 to the Nuggets. At this point, this series has taken on the feel of a slow-motion train wreck for them.
