The Lakers weren’t supposed to lose on Tuesday. After all, they faced the lowly Nets, and not for nothing did oddsmakers install them as six-point favorites heading into the set-to. Never mind the absence of Most Valuable Player candidate LeBron James and fellow starters Rui Hachimura and Jaxson Hayes. For all their roster deficiencies, they still had more than enough talent at their disposal — beginning with wunderkind Luka Dončić — to thrive. Instead, they found themselves absorbing an unwarranted setback that, at the very least, put them on notice for the immediate term.
True, the officiating left much to be desired; calls — or non-calls — in the crunch seemed to leave the Lakers at a disadvantage time and again. Yet, to argue that the men in gray were responsible for the outcome would be to ignore the more evident reason. They played badly, period. Dončić, well positioned to take the reins from opening tip to final buzzer, wound up with a forgettable outing; he was an atrocious eight of 26 from the field against supposed patsies. Meanwhile, backcourt mate Austin Reaves did even worse, going three of 14. And because the offense revolved around them, not even the outstanding showing of the likes of Gabe Vincent, Dalton Knecht, and Jordan Goodwin could make up for their shortcomings.
Don’t be fooled by the final score. Bottom line, the Lakers proved adept at snatching defeat from the throes of victory. Apart from the shooting woes of their principal playmakers, they were done in by their sloppiness with the ball and relative lack of hustle. And it wasn’t simply that they had eight more turnovers and four more fouls. They likewise gave up a whopping 16 offensive rebounds and had the ball stolen or blocked by the same number. In other words, they deserved to have their backsides handed to them for the second straight set-to.
For the Lakers, the bad news is that the road ahead figures to get much harder. They’ll be playing six matches in eight days, and twice against both the highly regarded Nuggets and Bucks. And, yes, they’re likely to continue missing James’ services throughout. Which is to say they will need to do better — make that much better — as a collective if they want to stay competitive in the tightly packed Western Conference. Else, they’ll be flirting with danger, and may yet find themselves relegated to the play-in tournament. The task won’t be easy, but they need to understand that they have more than enough to take the measure of the opposition. The question is whether they can tame themselves first.
“We have met the enemy, and the enemy is us.” — Oliver Hazard Perry
Anthony L. Cuaycong has been writing Courtside since BusinessWorld introduced a Sports section in 1994. He is a consultant on strategic planning, operations and human resources management, corporate communications, and business development.
