It’s been a week since the Los Angeles Lakers' freefall began with a Dec. 20 loss to the Clippers, and there doesn’t appear to be any reprieve in sight after an embarrassing 119-96 loss to the Houston Rockets in front of a primetime audience on Christmas Day. 

The Lakers have been held below 100 points in two of their last three games, and the one game they weren’t, they still lost to the Phoenix Suns by 24 points. In fairness, the Lakers were without Luka Doncic against the Suns, but they haven’t been much better in the two games during this stretch that he’s played in.

After spending the first two months of the season routinely posting numbers that nearly rivaled Nikola Jokic and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander’s absurd MVP cases, Doncic has seemingly reverted into the most ineffective form of himself in his last two appearances. 

Before leaving last week’s loss to the Clippers at halftime, Doncic made just 4-of-13 attempts from the field. On Christmas, he scored 25 points but shot 3-of-8 from the 3-point range and registered a game-high six turnovers (along with Houston’s Alperen Sengun). 

Following their third straight nightmarish loss, Doncic agreed with coach JJ Redick that some tough conversations needed to be had in order for the Lakers to find themselves and to find their way out of this slump. Doncic knows the buck stops with him, but the noticeable lack of effort is something that’s permeated through the entire team.

“We need to talk about it,” Doncic said. “It’s probably going to be uncomfortable. But everybody's got to give better effort. Starting with me … I think we've just got to challenge everybody. Everybody's got to challenge each other first and then (challenge their) teammates. There's no way we should be playing like this. So, we've just got to be better than that.”

Things won’t be getting any easier for the Lakers. It was reported on Saturday that Austin Reaves, who has emerged as an All-Star candidate and even a dark horse MVP candidate, would miss at least the next month after falling victim to the NBA’s calf injury epidemic. Reaves was officially diagnosed with a grade 2 left gastrocnemius strain, according to Shams Charania.

The Lakers will look get back on the right side of things against the Sacramento Kings on Sunday, with tip-off set for 3:30 p.m. PST at Crypto.com Arena.