You are a locked-on Lakers podcast.

Part of Locked-on Sports Los Angeles on the Locked-on Podcast Network, your team every day.

Well, the Lakers play with their backs against the wall.

They fall behind early and they fall short in a terrible fourth quarter.

We talked about it all on the lockdown Lakers postcast.

I'm Dave Palais.

Again, if you're joining for the first time tonight,

I've been with the all season long, but just a little bit of background.

Again, a 30-year vet in sports broadcasting in the Southern California area for more than,

let's see, about 12 years in Los Angeles and about 22 in San Diego.

But again, best part of the job I've ever had and doing national stuff for years was covering the Lakers.

For the Lakers, again, from 1993 to 2005, and again, as I say all the time, I had the good years.

I had the years when Shaq came into the league.

I had the years when Sha, excuse me, when Shaq was a Laker and Kobe came into the league,

and at the same time watching this team grow. And from the star players they've had, from LeBron James to being around Luca,

as a media member, has been absolutely outstanding.

Tonight was not an outstanding night.

And again, if you're a Laker fan like me, and I'm sure you are right now, you're irritated,

you saw the holes that this team has, you saw the deficiencies they had. And you saw it all come to fruition tonight. And the Lakers fall short and they're done. In five games against Minnesota Timberwolves and the Lakers were a higher seed, they lose 103.96. And it becomes extremely frustrating because that's the word we've used the most lately when the Lakers have fallen short on what is the issue with this team?

And where do you want to point fingers and say when you aren't winning, who's that fault?

And why isn't this team winning?

What could this team have done differently to basically turn things around?

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