The Lakeshow Review

It’s been a rough Christmas for the Lakers. The team lost consecutive games for the first time, coming up short against the Clippers and Suns. On Christmas afternoon, the lost again to the Houston Rockets. They lost each game by 15, 24 and 23 points. Clearly, this has been their lowest point of the season thus far. LA has to make changes, both to their game plan and to their rotations, if there’s any hope of steering this ship in the right direction. The team currently lacks effort, an identity, and more importantly, a cohesive system, both offensively and defensively that players can fall back on and execute. Big changes should be in place.

The defensive issues continue to persist. The Lakers simply can’t execute a switch properly. They either fail to get behind the roll man, fail to jam the ballhandler at the level of the screen, or some meek combination of both. The team is also playing with absolutely no effort. Their closeouts are lazy, they don’t sprint to the three point line, their help defense is erratic. Players generally look lost out there. The Lakers make comically novice mishaps on defense far too often, such as failing to seal off the middle of the floor, or having guys wandering behind the three point line when they should be in a more advantageous help position. It’s a combination of low effort and lack of coaching. As Head Coach JJ Redick remarked following the Rockets 119-96 beatdown, “I’m not doing another 53 games like this”. Whatever that means, it better spell changes.

The Lakers haven’t even been playing terribly, statistically speaking. They shot 48% from the the floor and 38% from three against the Suns. Yet, they still got clobbered, 132-108. This speaks to a team that is simply going through the motions, and coasting off of their skill. Yet they’re putting in no effort. Through the season thus far, we’ve seen glimpses of the team’s lapse in effort. But in the last three games, it’s come full circle. Their effort level has bottomed out. Defensively, they have no interest in staying in front of their man and keeping them out of the basket.

Agains the Rockets, it was a similar story, shooting 51% from the court, and 37% from three. They were still decimated 119-96 by an exponential sharper Rockets side, who exuded superior execution, on both ends. In this game, LA were destroyed in the glass, 48-25. When the team doesn’t want to rebound, or play defense, that is as good as a loss. Role players have also fallen off a cliff lately, with Rui Hachimura tallying zero points, in 28 minutes of action last night. This goes back to the team’s lack of an offensive identity. Players like Rui have no idea what to do or where to be on the floor, because there’s no semblance of a game plan in place to sort everybody’s roles.

It should also be noted that LeBron James, after picking up his $56M player option, and having his agent/mouthpiece make the media rounds critiquing the Lakers’ organization, has been objectively mediocre in the past few games, all losses. Following some ho-hum 23 and 18 point performances, he simply isn’t playing to the level insinuated by his gaudy salary. For someone who still believes he can carry a franchise, he clearly needs to step up. Not even carry a franchise, just be a reliable no.2 who can effectively play off of Luka. Except they’re a terrible fit together. I’ve written about LA needing to get out of the LeBron/Klutch business. I’ve seen nothing from this team or LeBron’s play thus far that would move me off of that opinion.

Lastly, Luka Dončić needs to do summer. This past summer, he was handed the keys to the franchise. He was extended for the longterm, inking a three-year extension with the Purple and Gold, after the organization traded Anthony Davis for him last February. Lately, Luka hasn’t been playing great basketball. Certainly not to the level expected from a franchise pillar. Since rejoining the club following a leave of absence, Luka has been putting up a shade under 30 points (29.5) per game. But, he is doing so shooting 41% from the floor and 26% from three. His turnovers have also ballooned to 4.2 a night. Luka’s shot selection has been an issue lately, often settling for long threes early in the shot clock, insread of attacking the basket and forcing the defense to rotate or collapse. You can’t make a living off of attacking a set defense, at some point you have to try to break them down. Luka needs to find his midrange shot, atttack the rim and look for more post-ups. If ill-fated step-back threes are his version of quixck offense, then that will not yield the results that the team needs. He needs to go back to the old Luka, where he can put pressure on the defense at multiple fronts.

The Lakers need to get back to playing organized, team-basketball. There’s no concept of semblance out there lately, with guys just looking to get their shots and being completely zoned out on the other end. Help defense, defensive switching, rotations, ball movement, team rebounding and shot selection all need to improve. Especially with guard and All-Star hopeful Austin Reaves slated to miss time (he’ll be out at least four weeks with a grade 2 calf strain, which are no joke), it’ll take a team-wide collaboration to dig in and try to right their current trajectory. Both coaches and players need to come together, as both can do more. Much more. In the meantime, they have built themselves a decent cushion, standing at 19-10. Their early season success has afforded them a bit of grace. Nonetheless, it’s important for this group to produce a solid, all-encompassing and decisive victory soon, so that they can build off of it and maybe start to recapture their better habits. As Coach JJ Redick aptly put it, “we can’t do 56 more games of this”.

Merry Christmas.

Go Lakers.