The Los Angeles Lakers’ five-game winning streak came to a disappointing end on Saturday night as the Atlanta Hawks blew them apart 122-102. The game started off with a Laker turnover that led to an easy layup for Atlanta’s Zaccharie Risacher, which was a good bit of foreshadowing of how the game was about to be played out. This performance from the Purple & Gold demands a change, which, according to Jake LaRavia, is just over the horizon.

After the game, the 24-year-old forward, who has emerged as one of the better players for the Purple & Gold this season, revealed a few changes that the Lakers will make after Saturday’s humbling defeat. When asked about how he and his teammates would make sure that this doesn’t happen again, LaRavia said, “I mean, you just got to learn from it and move on.”

“You got to understand that this isn’t the identity of this team,” LaRavia further added. “This game was an outlier of the first 10 games that we’ve played, and just to not let it break us. We’re just going to come right back to next game and be ready to play.”

Well, what Jake LaRavia said made sense, as, so far, excluding this defeat, they have rarely missed a beat, despite missing LeBron James and even Luka Doncic and Austin Reaves for a game or two. So, what went wrong against the Hawks? According to the 24-year-old, it was the lack of communication that cost them the game.

“I mean, you just have to communicate at the end of the day. This was a tough game. This is kind of like just one of those games where the other team just kind of had it going, and we just couldn’t find a way to kind of get over that hump. But when you find yourselves in these situations, you just can’t let it break the team up and stop communicating with everyone,” LaRavia emphasized.

“So, just got to communicate and make sure everyone stays locked in, which we didn’t.” That was certainly the case, as the Lakers struggled to defend the paint and shot terribly from the field. Not just that, even from behind the arc, Atlanta knocked down an insane 45 percent of their shots, which is significantly better than LA’s 37 percent.

It is not that the Lakers were completely out of the game. If not for the initial trail, they did come back strong on the fourth quarter scoring 30. But in absence of two star players like LeBron and Reaves of the Big 3, the team can hardly expect the role player to fire every time.

So, as Jake LaRavia suggested, the Purple & Gold will need to communicate better as a team. Meanwhile, it wasn’t just the forward who was disappointed with the team’s performance on the night, as their second-year head coach, JJ Redick, also shed light on his team’s shortcomings against the Hawks.

JJ Redick expresses his disappointment after the Lakers’ embarrassing defeat

Well, while Jake LaRavia was disappointed yet calm about the defeat, the same cannot be said about his head coach. JJ Redick was worked up after the Los Angeles Lakers’ 122-102 loss against the Hawks. So much so that when a reporter asked him about when he realized that the game was slipping away, the coach didn’t even let him finish the question and gave a harsh reply.

“I realized that in the first two minutes of the game,” Redick said. Then, when the reporter pressed him by asking him what he saw on the court, he simply said, “nothing.” Well, the Purple & Gold head coach had every right to be this upset with his team, especially when they’ve been so good this season. However, they looked like a shell of themselves on Saturday.

Nonetheless, what hurt the Lakers’ coach the most was the fact that Atlanta thumped his team without the likes of Trae Young, Kristaps Porzingis, and Jalen Johnson on the court. Although Los Angeles themselves were also shorthanded with both LeBron James and Austin Reaves on the sidelines, they’ve already proved earlier this season that they can win games without a couple of their stars.

However, they failed to do so last night. JJ Redick has now stated that he’ll look into this loss and make changes, maybe the ones that Jake LaRavia emphasized. Will those changes help LA get back on track? That’s something we’ll have to wait and watch as they take on the Hornets next.