Lakers Look ‘Lame’ in Loss

There wasn’t much of anything to latch onto after the Lakers lost to the Atlanta Hawks, the team with the league’s second-worst record.

“I think we got everybody in the game at least, so I think they’ll get their [varsity] letters this year,” Coach Frank Hamblen said.

If there’s an end-of-the-year banquet as well, the Lakers will want to edit out of the highlight video the three hours they spent at Philips Arena on Monday, a night that ended with the Hawks improving upon what had been a 9-37 record with a 114-108 victory over the Lakers in front of 15,633.

Lamar Odom called the effort “lame,” Caron Butler said he was shocked by what happened, and the Lakers lost for the sixth time in eight games.

Perhaps the only face-savers for the Lakers were the rows of empty seats that stared back at them as they fell behind by 29 points in the second quarter.

Although, as Butler noted after scoring only six points in 29 minutes, news these days travels by ways other than word of mouth.

“I advised everybody on my team just to turn off the TV and don’t read the paper for the next day or so,” Butler said.

Odom had 28 points, Tierre Brown had a career-high 27 points and Chucky Atkins had 25.

But, as General Manager Mitch Kupchak watched 20 rows up from center court, the Lakers struggled defensively, surrendering 31 or more points in three quarters, including a 35-point barrage in the fourth.

“We’re just coming out really lame,” Odom said. “Right now we’re just playing like a bad team. Right now we’re just playing like a less-than-mediocre team.”

Not much of note happened in the first quarter, although female boxer Laila Ali did pretend to knock out the Hawk mascot with a phantom punch during a timeout.

The Lakers missed their first eight shots and trailed, 14-0, before Odom finally made two free throws with 7:22 left in the quarter.

It only got worse by halftime.

The Hawks were without their second-leading scorer, Al Harrington, because of knee soreness, but that didn’t stop the Lakers from falling behind, 48-19, with 8:46 left in the second quarter.

It also didn’t stop Butler from picking up three fouls in the first quarter, or the Lakers from totaling only five assists in the first half, a pittance compared with the 16 Atlanta had.

This being the Hawks, though, there’s no such thing as too large of a lead.

Slava Medvedenko made an appearance in the final minute of the third quarter and tipped in a miss to bring the Lakers to within 10 points, 79-69. From there, a steady diet of three-point baskets from Atkins and Brown brought the Lakers back.

Atkins’ three-pointer cut the deficit to 98-97 with 3:41 left to play, but the Hawks quickly rebuilt their lead, Antoine Walker making a short jumper from the baseline and then finding Boris Diaw alone under the basket for a dunk.

Walker then made a fadeaway over Odom from the baseline with 47 seconds left to provide a 106-100 lead.

Walker had 26 points on 10-for-15 shooting.

There were other problems for the Lakers, as outlined by Hamblen as he scanned the box score.

“Too many individuals had too many season highs,” Hamblen said, citing season-high points for Josh Childress, Tony Delk and Donta Smith. “In order for this [Laker] team to cling to the eighth spot [in the Western Conference], they will have to defend better than they did tonight.”

The Lakers, on the road for 22 of their last 36 games, haven’t fared this poorly in Atlanta since ... last year.

With Shaquille O’Neal still drawing a Laker paycheck and Phil Jackson sitting comfortably on the bench, the Lakers lost to the Hawks in March, 94-93, while Kobe Bryant attended a hearing in Colorado for a sexual-assault charge that was eventually dropped.

Bryant has now sat out 12 games because of a severely sprained ankle, and with three more road games left on the trip, the Lakers have some work to do.

“I’m shocked,” Butler said. “Just very shocked.”