It was a tale of two halves for the Lakers in their loss against the Suns.
During the first half, Luka Dončić and Austin Reaves were utterly dominant. They had a combined 40 points, and the Lakers were in control up by 10 entering the third quarter.
In the second half, things fell apart.
The Lakers’ reserve players’ minutes increased, and the lead decreased. The offense began to stagnate, and turnovers were plentiful. By the end of the third quarter, there was a 16-point swing as the Suns led by six.
The fourth was more of the same. Despite Jake LaRavia and Dalton Knecht playing over half of the quarter, Los Angeles struggled to do much of anything right offensively or defensively.
The Suns cruised to a win despite all of their main players resting, as they had recently returned from their preseason games in China.
Sure, the Lakers would’ve probably won had they kept Austin and Luka on the floor, but that’s not the point. The preseason is about building habits, and the Lakers’ head coach, JJ Redick, has been fostering a championship mentality among everyone wearing a purple and gold uniform throughout the preseason.
In Tuesday’s loss, the consistency wasn’t there for the full 48 minutes.
“I don’t think any of the groups tonight were as consistent as they need to be, Redick said postgame. “To me, we took a step forward with some of the defensive stuff from the other night against Golden State, and we took a step backward tonight. And that’s, I think, a little bit frustrating.”
The Lakers have played the Warriors twice in the preseason, so it’s unclear if the improvement he’s referring to on the defensive side is from the team’s win over Golden State or the loss.
It’s likely the 111-103 defeat since, in that game, they were outrebounded, allowed the Warriors to shoot 39.4% from 3-point range and Golden State had 23 fastbreak points compared to Los Angeles’ five.
In this loss to the Suns, the Lakers won the rebounding battle, had more fastbreak points than Phoenix and 3-point shooting was down just a little bit.
Improvement is good, but if the Lakers can’t be consistent in all phases of the game for all quarters of a contest, they are destined to lose games they were supposed to win once the regular season comes around.
Hopefully, we see better execution in the Lakers’ penultimate preseason game on Wednesday in Las Vegas against Luka’s former team, the Mavericks.
You can follow Edwin on Twitter at @ECreates88 or on Bluesky at @ecreates88.bsky.social.
