The Los Angeles Lakers are back on the drawing board after losing to the Memphis Grizzlies 131-114 on Wednesday. Granted, they played without Anthony Davis and Rui Hachimura, but their terrible habits from last season also came out, namely poor effort on defense. Moreover, Lakers coach JJ Redick even benched D’Angelo Russell for his lack of effort and attention to detail, and former Clippers teammate Paul Pierce reacted to Redick’s postgame presser where he praised LeBron and indirectly criticized everyone else.
“I didn’t recognize that guy, I been in the locker room with him a couple years… I never saw that type of attitude,” Pierce said on the latest episode of Speak on FS1.
The Lakers have to figure things out
After the Lakers’ loss to the Grizzlies sent them back to .500, it’s understandable for a coach like JJ Redick to feel frustrated, which Paul Pierce noted on the show.
Redick was right, too, that LeBron James was the only starter who showed up, in his 1,500th career game, finishing with 39 points on 15-24 shooting, 22 of those coming in the first half to keep the game close.
Likewise, his backcourt of D’Lo and Austin Reaves only went 4-18 from three-point range, combined, clearly untenable if they didn’t play any defense on the other end.
Moreover, this loss also came after their loss to the Pistons, where their bad habits from last season came out to bite them.
Poor defensive effort allowed the Pistons to get the jump on them early, attacking the backcourt unable to stay in front of Cade Cunningham and Jaden Ivey, who torched them with a 17-point triple-double and 26 points, respectively.
During the Grizzlies game, the Purple and Gold couldn’t take advantage of Ja Morant leaving the game due to an injury. Without AD, the Grizz got whatever they wanted against the porous Lakers defense, who gave up 131 points.
Now, fans wonder what happened to the Lakers who started the season 3-0 against playoff contenders.
While Redick being a rookie NBA coach gives him a slight benefit of the doubt, since this is simply part of a long season’s growing pains, his team hasn’t earned any pass at all.
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Problems in Hollywood
What’s more frustrating for fans is that when this team is clicking, they are incredibly fun to watch, but when they come out flat, they simply are horrible television: uninspired, lazy, disjointed.
Still, the bright side to this is Redick finally turning the keys over to Davis, who scored over 30 points in all but one of the games he has played this year.
The Lakers have glaring issues, which a trade–probably packaging D’Lo–could address, but if they still couldn’t fix the terrible habits that turned a playoff roster into a play-in one even after three coaches, then they have a major problem.
Additionally, until then, maybe fans shouldn’t expect much from this team moving forward.