5 Things: Lakers Not Into It

The first visit to Intuit looked, to me at least, like the lakers weren’t into it. They sleep-walked through 70-80% of the game and the result was another predictable loss. predictable in the sense that if you don’t compete it’s very hard to win. That’s a bad habit we’ve already seen far too often this season, especially in games where both LBJ and AD are playing.

1. Giving away shots. 17 total turnovers helped lead to a fairly large shot disparity between the Clippers and Lakers. Yeah the Clippers coughed it off 13 times in total, too, but the Clippers also scored a lot more points off give aways than we did. Reaves and Lebron combined for 10 of those turnovers which is simply unsustainable if winning is the goal. Reaves can be semi-forgiven as he is still learning how to be the dominant guard with the ball but, in general, both players just need to do a better job of not coughing it up.
2. Rebounds, rebounds, rebounds. Clippers beat us in this vital stat and it showed mostly on the offensive glass. AD can’t do everything. He can’t rotate, contest, box out and rebound all on the same play all game long. I’m not sure if it’s an issue with energy, focus, coaching or a little bit of all of that (I suspect that to be the case) but the offensive glass has been an alarming issue all season long.
3. Defense means trying hard. Not showing up, not shrugging and trotting back after you got scored on, but, like, BEFORE the shot goes up. The Clippers, like many teams this season, got what they wanted, when they wanted it and how they wanted it. Christie was getting cooked all game long, Reaves is often the target of the opposition in pick and roll switches and the Lakers don’t really seem to be doing too much about it as a whole. I think that, from a defensive standpoint, it makes so much more sense to start DFS and have Rui augment our impotent bench (more on that in a minute) that one has to hope a change is imminent. If not, we could be looking at more losses like this one.
4. The bench is just…weak. Gabe had his lunar showing a couple games ago and promptly went back into his hole. Knecht continued to struggle when the game mattered (although he shot a decent % last night, half his production came in garbage time). Jaxson Hayes had an OK 14 minutes. The lakers bench is a black hole into which win are forever lost to another dimension. Some kind of change needs to happen and the most likely is swapping DFS for Rui.
5. Energy isn’t matchup dependent. The player chooses to play hard or not. If they don’t feel capable, they can ask for a rest. I’m putting a lot of these types of losses on the players failing to execute and/or play at a high enough energy level. DFS is out there diving and barking at his brand new teammates, that type of accountability needs to become the norm if we want to turn this around and become something more than we currently appear to be. Whether that means getting someone like Vando back, a switch up in the rotation, or playing different players altogether (Cam brings the hustle, sat the entire game) that’s for the coaches to decide so the longer this goes on the more the blame will shift from the players to the coaches refusing to adjust. We’re coming up to the halfway point, there isn’t anything new to discover unless it relates to DFS or an injured player.

Don’t blow it tonight, hella trap game…