Lakers News: Darvin Ham Unpacks L.A.'s Second Half Collapse Against Cavaliers

Cleveland outscored L.A. 56-36 over the game's final two quarters.

Your Los Angeles Lakers dropped their second straight home contest, this time against a formidable Cleveland Cavaliers club, during an unfortunate 130-116 matinee.

L.A. was the better team in the game's first half, and was up 64-58 at the break. Cleveland came back with a vengeance to secure the victory thanks to a second half demolition, outscoring the Lakers 56-36 across the contest's last two quarters.

Head coach Darvin Ham spoke resignedly about the defeat during a postgame presser.

"Our spirit seemed to have left the building." - Darvin Ham talks about the #Lakers' 2nd half performance against the Cavs. pic.twitter.com/fdxVLfmcFm

— Spectrum SportsNet (@SpectrumSN) November 7, 2022

Here are the highlights from Ham's comments:

"Our spirit seemed to have left the building. That's one of the parts of re-establishing a winning culture is being able to maintain a competitive spirit. I thought what we saw in the first half is how we want to play. We were right there toe-to-toe with them, we actually had the lead going into halftime. And then, second half again, shots don't go down, a few turnovers happened, and we kind of dropped our heads a little bit, and they just kept revving it up... they're an extremely talented ball club... We have to do a better job of keeping our focus and not getting so down, because those mental lapses, as you saw, can turn into... an entire half of disappointment."

Lakers stars LeBron James, Anthony Davis, and Russell Westbrook all looked excellent in the game's first half, but Davis and James notably seemed to fatigue in the contest's second half. Davis scored just two points and seemed disengaged from his team's offense during that lackluster final two frames. L.A. also struggled to contain star Cavaliers guards Darius Garland and Donovan Mitchell late.

The team has now sunk to 2-7 against a tough opening schedule. Things won't get much easier tomorrow, when L.A. squares off on the road against a 7-3 Utah Jazz team that walloped the Lakers on Friday.