Another game for the Lakers against a good Western Conference team meant another blowout loss. This time, it was versus the Suns on the road on Tuesday night, losing 127-100 to earn their third straight defeat.
The game followed a similar script to Los Angeles’ loss to the Denver Nuggets. They were blown out in the second half, specifically in the third quarter and never posed a threat to comeback in the fourth.
The biggest difference was that they gave a worthwhile effort against the Suns compared to their lackadaisical play against the Nuggets. Unfortunately, it didn’t affect the result.
Losing streaks happen, but what’s been alarming is just how bad L.A. has been defensively during these defeats.
They entered this Suns contest with the fourth-worst defensive rating at 117.9 and were tied for the most points allowed in the NBA on fastbreaks at 19.3.
This game won’t help those stats, as the Suns were dominant offensively, scoring 30 plus points in three of the four quarters and 19 points off of fastbreaks.
Phoenix also dominated inside the paint, outscoring Los Angeles 54-50. The Suns shot 40% from 3-point range, while the Lakers only converted 23% of their attempts from deep.
Simply put, the Suns did whatever they wanted and the Lakers couldn’t do anything about it.
After the loss, JJ Redick acknowledged these problems and mentioned potentially changing his defensive schemes against top competition.
Given how bad the Lakers have been defensively, Redick needs to look at his schemes against all competition.
It’s virtually the same personnel as last season, except for rookies Bronny James and Dalton Knecht and they are worse in all defensive categories.
In Redick’s defense, this team wasn’t exactly world-beaters last year at preventing scoring. Perhaps he’s trying to do the impossible and get a team with no elite perimeter defenders to stop these guards and wings from putting points on the board.
Still, that’s the job he signed up for and he’ll have to tinker away with lineups, zone coverages and whatever else he can concoct to try to get this team to at least be an average defensive squad and not at the bottom of the league.
You can follow Edwin on Twitter at @ECreates88.
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