LOS ANGELES – The Lakers have faced a similar question at times a little more than halfway through the 2023-24 regular season.
And it came up again after Friday night’s 130-112 loss at home to the Brooklyn Nets: How will they prevent a tough loss from impacting future performance? Especially when it looked like they were starting to turn a turn in their season?
“You show it on film,” coach Darwin Hamm said. “You look at this. You address it with the group. We’ve had a few of those this year and we generally respond well to it. And this is no different. You take all the good, the bad, the ugly and you show it to them and try to be better than it.
And when the Lakers go back and watch film after the loss, they’ll likely see an offense that wasn’t as organized or intentional with their attack as it was in Wednesday’s home win against the Dallas Mavericks. Or even Monday’s win over the Oklahoma City Thunder.
And a defense that allowed the Nets to take the lead and regain their momentum in the second half due to miscommunication – something D’Angelo Russell and Anthony Davis both noted after the game.
The Lakers led 37–28 at the end of the first quarter and 68–62 at halftime, but the Nets allowed them to lead 68–44 in the second half. Brooklyn scored 102 points in the final three quarters.
“They offer a lineup there that is very versatile,” Russell said. “If you don’t communicate, they will take advantage of it with slips and screens and obviously (Nets coach) Jack Vaughn is a very poor coach. He is setting up and placing them in this position to take advantage of any miscommunication or mishap on our part. “That’s what they did (on Friday), they took advantage of it.”
Davis said: “There’s just a lot of misunderstanding. When we had to go to a screen, we went down a few screens. We score and then they immediately come back and get a wide-open layup in transition, which doesn’t mean anything. Because of some miscommunication we’re probably helping when we shouldn’t be, the coverages are a little off and they’re swinging the ball and guys are getting wide-open threes. In the last few games, we have been able to control such things and in the third quarter we did not do that.
After impressive wins over the Thunder and Mavericks, Friday could have marked the Lakers’ third consecutive win – a victory they have not experienced since winning the in-season tournament last month. The Lakers (21-22) have yet to win three consecutive regular season games that did not tie in the tournament and are 14-22 in non-tournament games.
But Friday took another step backwards. At the end of the day it’s only one game, but the yo-yo between quality performances and disappointing performances has left the Lakers on the edge of the play-in standings (seeds 7-10) in the Western Conference.
“It’s kind of a constant thing for us, but like I said, when you get two, you’re trying to get a rhythm and you have two great plays on both sides of the field,” Davis said. ” “And then you come back in the second half of this game and have practically no defense against these guys.
“Guys are getting wide-open shots, wide-open layups, wide-open dunks, we were drawing fouls, not rebounding. We didn’t do everything on the defensive end. “And allowed those guys to get into a rhythm and now you’re playing with confidence and the rims are huge for those guys.”
Is it worrying that the Lakers have not performed consistently? For Davis, it’s more a disappointment than a concern that there hasn’t been positive carryover.
