Cry for help? LeBron James suffers career-worst defeat

To say the Los Angeles Lakers struggled on Tuesday night would be an understatement.

The Lakers fell to the Indiana Pacers at Bankers Life Fieldhouse 136-94 on Tuesday, marking their second-straight loss. The 42-point blunder also marked the worst loss by any LeBron James-led team in his 16-year NBA career when he’s played. He has previously lost by 36 points twice.

It was that bad.

The Lakers, who had fallen into a 23-point hole at halftime, never led in the contest. Late in the fourth quarter, the Pacers had easily built up a 46-point lead. And while their field goal percentage wasn’t awful — the Lakers shot 35-of-75 from the field — they went just 4-of-19 from behind the 3-point line.

“We know we have to be a lot better,” Lakers coach Luke Walton said after the game, via Spectrum Sports Net.

“There’s a million excuses that we can come up with — the travel, the first game coming across the country, all the trade, all everything else. But bottom line we have to be better, and we will be.”

Pacers fans had plenty of fun throughout the rout, too.

They were heard chanting at multiple Lakers players, first at Brandon Ingram while he was shooting free throws.

“LeBron’s going to trade you,” they yelled.

Later in the game it was JaVale McGee who copped it with an even more brutal chant: “Not worth trading.”

James led the Lakers with 18 points, nine assists and seven rebounds, shooting 7-of-12 from the field. He did pass the 32,000-point mark on Tuesday, however, becoming just the fifth player in league history to do so.

McGee and Lance Stephenson added 16 points and 13 points off the bench, respectively, and Ingram and Kyle Kuzma each added 12.

Bojan Bogdanovic led the Pacers with 24 points, shooting 10-of-17 from the field, and Myles Turner added 22 points. Aaron Holiday, Edmon Sumner and Domantas Sabonis each dropped 17 points off the bench.

The Lakers have been in turmoil ever since James injured his groin on Christmas Day. With him out for nearly five weeks, the Lakers plummeted in the Western Conference standings.

The team has been vying for New Orleans Pelicans star Anthony Davis before the trade deadline, too, which, among other things, has reportedly caused multiple rifts in the locker room.

There was even reportedly a “heated exchange” between multiple veterans and Walton on Saturday. While details of incident have been disputed, it’s clear that many on the Lakers are growing frustrated with the current state of the team.

“Tonight was not good,” Walton said. “We talk about our competitive spirit a lot. I praise our guys all the time about it … Tonight we didn’t have that spirit that we like to see. But look, there’s 82 games. It’s going to happen randomly throughout a season. The important thing is we just don’t let it happen again on Thursday.”

Walton, however, declined to say if Tuesday night’s blunder was partly a result of the uncertainty surrounding the team due to repeated trade rumors.

“It effects everyone differently,” Walton said. “I’ve seen and been part of teams where people can’t play because of it, and I’ve been on teams where nobody cares and you go out and do your job anyways. There’s not a specific answer to that. It’s different for everybody.”

– Ryan Young, Yahoo Sports