The Los Angeles Lakers suffered their first loss of the regular season when they lost 109-105 to the Phoenix Suns on the first night of their five-game road trip. Many Lakers struggled that night, including LeBron James, who shot just 3 of 14 and finished with 11 points.

James added eight assists and five rebounds while also adding a huge 3-pointer to give the Lakers a chance late. The ball was in his hands and had a chance to tie it, but the Suns would foul him before he could get a shot, and an intentionally missed free throw didn’t end up the Lakers’ way.

But even though the game ended in a loss, LeBron was still happy with a lot of things the Lakers did, admitting via Spectrum SportsNet where they failed and can improve:

“Wins and losses are inevitable in this league. How you play and how you continue to play every single game determines what kind of team you want to be. Despite the loss tonight, I think we did some great things and some things we could obviously be better at. We scored 14 points in the second quarter and got them back into the game. We started the fourth quarter with seven players and let them get right back into the game, so we could be a lot better there. But we did a lot of good.”

Now the Lakers are facing their first difficult situation this early in the season and need to get back on their feet to get in the win column. LeBron knows how dangerous it is when these losses pile up and is determined to make sure that doesn’t happen:

“You just want to be able to bounce back and not let that snowball turn into an avalanche when it comes to the loss column. So we’re in the process of getting to know ourselves and getting to know each other out there on the floor. But we want to prevent losses from coming in large quantities. So we’re looking forward to our next duel.”

That won’t be an easy task, as the Lakers next face the undefeated Cleveland Cavaliers, who were one of the most impressive teams in the entire NBA in the first week of the season. It’s difficult to shut down Donovan Mitchell and Co. on the road, but that’s the job that needs to be done and LeBron, Anthony Davis and the rest of the Lakers need to find a way to get it done.

Lakers’ LeBron James talks about how he benefits from the attention Anthony Davis is receiving

While LeBron James struggled against the Suns, the same cannot be said for Anthony Davis, who continued his dominant start to the season. His level of play ultimately makes things easier for LeBron overall and the superstar recently spoke about it.

“In every way, form and facet. He gets so much attention,” James said. “Defensively, he continues to dominate defensive rebounds at a high level. When we get to our switching groups, he can make substitutions at the edge and make things difficult for them. Offensively, we can find him on mismatches. Many teams in our league like to swap guards for bigs. We have a guy that you can’t really guard. This leads to disproportions. We encourage him, coaches encourage him to shoot those three balls. Probably the biggest achievement of the evening is that he manages this threesome tonight. That made it easy for me. All I have to do is get it done on time and on target.”

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