5 Things: Lakers Lose More Than a Game

More than just a single game was at stake last night. The Lakers had a chance to move up in the standings, win the season series (and thus tie-breaker) against the Kings, and continue to show that the inconsistent play that has come to define this season was well and truly behind them. None of that happened as the Lakers quickly surrendered a 19 point lead and never really got close after that due to defensive breakdowns and an overall lack of intensity on that end. They did make a lot of shots but it didn’t really matter because we let the Kings make more. A lot more.

1. It’s always going to come down to defense. Always. We shot over 50% overall, over 40% from three, and we took more than twice the number of free throws as the Kings did. Every starter scored in double-figures and we had 25 assists on 42 makes, better than a 50% ratio for scores off the pass. The offense is not the problem. The defense? Not NBA playoff caliber, not without at least one of Cam or Vando in the current schemes. If we’re counting on 39 year old James to maintain a high degree of effort and energy on that end we are fooling ourselves. AD cannot do everything and when he sits, or got into foul trouble like last night, we sink faster than a mob boss wearing concrete shoes. Guys like DLo, Reaves (who was unable to stay in front of the quicker Fox after holding his own against the slightly slower SGA) and Prince need to be better.
2. Go big. The small ball lineups for the Lakers, as can currently be deployed, simply do not work. We give up too many rebounds, don’t play a smart or good enough brand of defense and the scoring doesn’t offset what we give up. I get it that Taurean Prince is Coach Ham’s long lost step son or whatever but line ups since Hayes found a new level defensively perform better than our small ball lineups that don’t have Cam or Vando. If injuries are going to constantly be used as the most pathetic excuse since Gen. Colin Powell talking roaming RV chemical weapon labs in Iraq as a justification for that invasion than the coach and his staff need to do a better job of believing their eyes, the stat sheet, and W/L record and adjust to the new reality. That reality is a bigger lineup that features Hayes, James and AD. You can play TP at the 2 with Dinwiddie if he’s the second coming or what have you but to continue to bang your head up against a wall that produces ineffective results is asinine and silly.
3. AD struggles against bigs from across the pond. Be it Nurkic, Jokic or Sabonis AD has a lot of issues staying out of foul trouble against players with superior fundamental skills than American bigs. This isn’t so much of an issue now but come playoff time it will be unless we somehow only play the Thunder, Warriors and…well…after that there ain’t no more teams that feature American centers, really. Not sure what it is but AD needs to figure that one out and play better defense without fouling.
4. Points in the paint cannot be lost for us to be able to win. We can’t become a jump shooting team because it allows a team like the Kings to murder us in the paint. The team and the coaches just need to be a lot smarter in this department and not get baited into the open jump shot the defense is obviously happy with you taking. We need to drive, drive, drive the ball to the rim and attack. We were getting to the line but when we settled for bad shots we gave up fastbreak points.
5. Couple that with our offensive rebounding issues (season long) and that’s where we lost the game. Offensive rebounds create some of the easiest shots in the game. We give up a lot of them. Small ball doesn’t work the way we play it. See 5 Things #2.

Big test tonight against the surging Bucks, need to reassert our dominant selves and not let what worked early in the season obfuscate what has been better of late. The defense better show up or I don’t think this one will be very close at all.