Through 35 games of the 2023–24 season, the Los Angeles Lakers are in a bad situation that they have been in before. It’s almost the middle of the season, and the Lakers are still below.500, even though Anthony Davis is playing great and LeBron James is mostly healthy.

The Lakers lost 14 of their 35 games in 2022–23. They went on to win five straight games after that and never got that low again 500 once more.

This season, things aren’t quite as bad because the Lakers are three games ahead (17-18). But they don’t have as many options to change their squad and get better players at the trade deadline. That’s how the Lakers are expected to get back on track: by getting better on their own.

Davis, who has been amazing this season even though the Lakers have lost, thinks that the team can get back to the way they were last season to help with their current problems.

“Last year was a bigger hole for us in terms of the record,” Davis said. “After that, we made it to the Western Conference Finals, but we can’t talk about last year.” Not the same team. I can tell you to just play, though. We just played. Now we have to do the same thing.

“We’re one game below 500, so we need to compete, play hard, and go into Friday’s game with the mindset that we need to win. Hopefully, that will help us get back to 500 and then start a streak at home.” We’ve been a great home team so far, and now we have a chance to keep that up. But if we keep playing the way we did tonight, things will go badly for us.”

Based on how they’ve been playing, Davis said that the Lakers are at a “make-or-break” point. The Lakers are only four games behind the No. 6 place and are just barely holding on to a spot in the Play-In Tournament. It may be too early to look at the rankings, though.

The Lakers need to fix things right away if they don’t want that gap to get bigger. Davis thinks they can do that by remembering 2022–23 to keep them going.

Anthony Davis: The Lakers can’t explain things

Davis was honest about how the Lakers have been playing and what they need to do right away to get things back on track.

“Whatever it takes to win,” Davis said when asked about the message in the Lakers’ locker room. To get back into the win column, every game for us should feel like a must-win, especially this homestand. From there, we can build on it.

“We won’t have an easy time. We need to figure it out because we have some great teams coming up. When it comes to defense, our guys are really paying attention to the film, our people, and what to do in coverages. Things seem to have slipped up a lot in those focus areas, and you can see it on the floor.