Darvin Ham, LeBron James, D’Angelo Russell blast officials after loss to Nuggets: ‘It’s getting real tricky’

After blowing a 20-point second-half lead to drop Game 2 to the Nuggets, the Lakers, led by Darvin Ham and LeBron James, criticized the officials postgame.

In the rapidly growing list of Lakers losses to the Nuggets, Monday’s likely tops it for the most frustrating. The Lakers dominated the first half and into the third quarter, building a 20-point lead only to watch it all crumble, culminating in a Jamal Murray buzzer-beater.

The loss is not only the tenth in a row against Denver but drops them to a 2-0 hole in the series. In every way, it felt like a punch to the gut that was entirely avoidable.

After the game, though, the Lakers felt very strongly about the officiating, which certainly took center stage for portions of the game.

Darvin wasn’t alone, nor was he the most vocal on the night about the calls. D’Angelo Russell also spoke about the officiating. And if anyone had the right to complain about them, it was him.

The most questionable officiating moment of the night came on a D’Lo play. After driving to the rim on Michael Porter Jr., D’Lo was hit in the face and a foul was called. Denver oddly challenged the play, but even more insane was the fact the officials overturned it.

The call was remarkably egregious at the time and certainly came back to haunt the Lakers considering they ended up losing. After the game, LeBron James did not mix his words when talking about the play.

D’Lo himself took to Twitter to complain about the non-call as well postgame.

That wasn’t the only notable call that didn’t go the Lakers way in the game, either. In the first half, LeBron was smacked on the hand by Murray on a play, again, where the officials initially called a foul but then overturned it.

The play that likely pushed the Lakers over the edge, though, came in the final minute of the game. LeBron drove to the basket and finished a layup on a play where he looked to be hit in the head by Murray.

On the night as a whole, the Lakers shot just 13 free throws. There were only four games this season in which they shot fewer. Since early March, the only time it’s happened came in a blowout win over the Raptors.

So, the Lakers have plenty of reason to be upset. The calls were both egregiously bad and less frequent than they had been all year. They seem to have a fair claim here.

At the same time, this is probably going to ring a little hollow to Lakers fans. A lot of things have to go wrong to blow a 20-point lead and they did for the Lakers. And a lot of that was self-inflicted wounds. The offense ground to a halt, the defense couldn’t get enough stops and things unraveled.

Any talk, then, about the officials is going to rile fans up. It’s just not a great look, fair or foul, to complain about the officials. Again, to counter that, there is never going to be a “good” time to discuss officials. And the emotions were certainly flowing postgame, so it’s understandable why they did it.

It’s just an overall bad situation the Lakers are in. Their downward spiral to a loss on Monday was largely caused by them, but officiating pushed them down that path a little bit quicker.

You can follow Jacob on Twitter at @JacobRude.