On Friday night, the Los Angeles Lakers seemed on track to achieving a win over the best team in the league. However, the Milwaukee Bucks continued to fight until the end and took advantage of turnovers as well as other key Lakers mistakes. A late play in which the ball was thrown poorly on the inbounds pass was just one of several examples. All of that led to the Lakers falling to the Milwaukee Bucks, 131-120. While LeBron James' playoffs intensity might be there, each loss seems to be closing their window of opportunity and leading to the Kings' frustration.

LeBron walks off the court early

The final buzzer hadn't gone off yet, but the loss was pretty much in the books. With the Bucks ahead and the clock's final 10 seconds running down, LeBron James made his early exit from the court. There were no pleasantries exchanged with opponents and no discussions with teammates over what went wrong. It appeared the breakdown loss irritated James to the point of simply walking away. A video emerged online showing King James leaving the game before time had officially run out.

Some of James' detractors will be quick to point out this is an example of poor leadership or sportsmanship from the superstar.

Others will say it's quite clear that LeBron James isn't happy with what this team is doing on the court. Whether that's attributed to the coach, or other players is another question, though. It could simply be LeBron's way of suggesting they need roster changes, which was clear with the team's final Anthony Davis trade offer before the deadline.

They still have about 20 games to go in their season, with a matchup coming up against the lowly Phoenix Suns that could bet them back on track. Still, LeBron James pointed out that there were some key issues in this latest loss.

James comments on teammates' defense

It's clear that James was frustrated with the Lakers loss, and he believed it was defensive issues that cost them the game.

LeBron mentioned several times in a post-game interview with reporters, that they broke down "individually" on defense. He didn't give any individual players' names, but mentioned they gave up two "and one" plays to Eric Bledsoe down the stretch. Bledsoe was considered the Bucks' star of the game with Giannis Antetokounmpo playing good, but not at his usual superstar level.

LeBron also said the LA Lakers had "too many one-on-one breakdowns" and praised Eric Bledsoe and Malcolm Brogdon amongst Giannis' great supporting cast in Milwaukee.

The former Rookie of the Year Brogdon scored 21 to help out. Bledsoe finished with a team-high 31 points in the win. Among his points scored were three-pointers and drives to the hoop which sometimes included the shot and the foul. The highlight video clip courtesy of the Milwaukee Bucks shows off Bledsoe who gave a hesitation move, drove past his defender, scored and got the "and one" call.

It's unknown if LeBron was singling out Kyle Kuzma in his comments about the "and one" calls or if he was speaking to the entire team's defense. However, several times in the game he appeared to be frustrated with teammates' plays. At one point, he even spoke directly to Kuzma during a Lakers timeout.

With the Phoenix Suns on the schedule for 9 PM Eastern Time on Saturday night, it should provide the Los Angeles Lakers a winnable game. That said, there have been other games that appeared "winnable" and the poor play cost them the games.
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