Thought Starter...
No defense in sight.
It went from bad to worse for the Lakers.
Outscored by 29 Monday in Minnesota, the purple and gold followed that up on Wednesday with a 41-point loss in Miami. And if we’re all being honest, the game didn’t seem as close as the score might indicate.
Miami was basically working against warm up levels of defensive resistance all night. It might seem like they caught lightning in a bottle to hit a scorching 24-47 from beyond the arc, but these are professionals. About 35-40 of those hoists were, if not totally uncontested, so mildly contested that it didn’t really matter. NBA players, left to shoot open 3-pointers in rhythm, are going to make more than they miss.
The Lakers played like they were unsure if they were allowed to even cross the 3-point line in order to contest some of these looks. The level of compete, as JJ Redick likes to talk about, was so low you wonder if the (metaphorical) tools designed measure it could even detect something. There is a certain level of effort and commitment to detail that an NBA must hit if they want to avoid... 41 point losses. The Lakers weren’t anywhere close.
And after the game, JJ Redick called it “embarrassing.” LeBron James and Anthony Davis used the same word.
But the thing is, they didn’t play like they were embarrassed. They just kinda went through the motions, like a balloon with all the air sucked out. “Embarrassing” is a good word for this game, and for the performance of Davis (3-14 in 31 minutes). We noted after the Monday’s loss that the Lakers simply aren’t built to win when Davis doesn’t produce on one end or the other (and preferably both).
We’ll see how they respond. The only good news of the day: With the Lakers out of NBA Cup contention, they’ll have a stretch coming after the weekend where they play twice in 10 days.
They’ll need to simultaneously use that time to heal, but also to practice and learn. It’s a lot, but then again, the Lakers have a whole lot to address.
Overheard In This Episode
“They are so far beyond bad defensively. They’re not bad by, you want to be a Western Conference contender, you got to really pick it up. Like you’re not bad by fringy playoff team standards. You are catastrophically bad.”
“They gotta get right—they gotta get right physically, they gotta get right mentally. They gotta get right from a scheme standpoint.”
“That was one of the worst games I’ve seen a professional team play. It was really bad.”
“There is one thing that you can control when you are supposedly embarrassed in an athletic contest.”
