LOS ANGELES – It’s no secret that the Lakers are a bad defensive team.
Los Angeles has a defensive rating of 117.1, sixth-worst in the NBA, and with all three of their stars being offensive juggernauts but with their defensive struggles, it’s difficult for the Lakers to ever lock down any team.
Thursday’s contest against the Hornets was the latest glaring example of that challenge.
Miles Bridges had himself a night, going 9-13 from the field for 25 points. LaMelo Ball looked like a bonafide superstar
as he scored 30 points, 27 of those coming in the second half. Brandon Miller mercilessly attacked the paint and was met with little to no resistance, scoring 26 points as the trio led the Hornets to a blowout win.
“I think that in general with our team,” head coach JJ Redick said postgame, “against certain teams that have the dynamic drivers — which the Hornets have some really good drivers and they have a ton of shooting — we can be a little bit cautious guarding the ball.”
That caution led to disaster as the Lakers’ nine-point lead after one quarter flipped into a nine-point deficit in just a dozen minutes. The Hornets then took that momentum and turned it into an offensive onslaught.
Ball caught fire in the third quarter, scoring 15 points with his most impressive basket coming against DeAndre Ayton. The Chino Hills native had Ayton on an island at the top of the key, worked a little magic to get the big man backpedaling, then took a ridiculous step back three that had the crowd audibly gasping.
“He hit some crazy shots, but that’s what he does,” Luka Dončić said. “He was shooting a lot of threes off the dribble, which we planned for that. He hit some crazy shots. Like I said, he does that. He got really hot he made eight threes in the second half. It’s kind of hard to stop him.”
While Ball is certainly an elite offensive player, the NBA is filled with guys like him who can get hot and take over a game.
It seems whenever the Lakers face one of those types of players, they take full advantage and exploit the holes in LA’s defense. And on this roster, there are plenty of options to choose from, regardless of whatever five-player lineup Redick concocts.
The reality might be that there is no solution for the Lakers’ defensive woes.
Perhaps they are simply too slow, too unathletic and too old to keep up with a league that seems to be getting bigger, younger and faster by the day. And no amount of rest, film work, or player desire can alter this team’s defensive trajectory.
However, that’s an uncomfortable truth they would never publicly admit. Instead, the focus has to be on being as physical as possible defensively and giving the kind of effort they had in their most recent win against the Hawks.
“We got to be able to adapt,” Marcus Smart said. “And that’s being able to understand that, no matter whether our shots are falling or not, we have to bring the physicality on both ends. The whole game.”
From Redick’s perspective, the Lakers have the effort and desire to execute their defensive schemes, but they just aren’t getting the job done.
This team, after all, features two superstars who are all about winning and are in the running for the most competitive players in the NBA.
However, that fire hasn’t been enough to slow teams down once they get going.
“We didn’t do a good job of containing the basketball at times, and then at times they made ridiculous shots,” Redick said. “We did three different coverages tonight, so it’s not like we’re not trying. We’re trying.”
What’s been made clear this season and specifically over the last week, though, is that no amount of trying is going to be able to cover up the team’s potentially fatal flaw
You can follow Edwin on Twitter at @ECreates88 or on Bluesky at @ecreates88.bsky.social.
