Lakers news: Surprise surprise, LA’s bad defense is losing games
By Jason Reed
Many optimistic fans of the Los Angeles Lakers expected big things this season. However, with losses piling up in the Lakers news, the bad defense is ruining expectations.
The Los Angeles Lakers start the season with a 2-4 record through six games played. For a team that has been at the bottom of the NBA for four seasons, this can be looked at as a positive start. However, with the high expectations of unrealistic Laker fans, this is an eye-opener. Now, everything seems to be negative in the Lakers news.
Los Angeles started the season off in good fashion. After dropping the opening contest to the Clippers the Lakers responded with a 132-130 win over the Suns. Lonzo Ball had a night to remember, scoring 29 points with 11 rebounds and nine assists. Two games later a win over the Wizards put LA at 2-2.
The season is young and to judge six games as a wholehearted representation is absurd. However, in the six games, fans are seeing the same old song and dance that they hoped would not return — bad defense. Ball is bad at defense, Brook Lopez is not great at interior defense and outside of Josh Hart, nobody really thrives defensively.
The entire starting unit was benched against the Toronto Raptors for their bad defensive efforts. This was after the Lakers led by as much as 17 in the second quarter. This is not unfamiliar territory. Los Angeles could not hold onto a late lead over the Pelicans and never even could find the lead against the Jazz.
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At times, the offense looks great. Although Ball is not having a direct impact on each and every play, his quick play style has led to a fast-paced offense that can catch teams by surprise.
However, the Lakers cannot match their good offense with good defense. Eventually, their opponents will score fast break after fast break and will pressure the Lakers offense with offense of their own.
As the team has proven in the Lakers news, they are not great against adversity. Although they did pull in a victory over the Wizards, they also nearly blew a fourth-quarter 12 point lead against the Suns.
This bad defense has been an unsettling eye-opener for those same optimistic Laker fans. However, it was expected by the rest of the NBA. If the team wants to improve, the defense is going to have to improve. If not, those playoff hopes could be pushed back several years.
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Overall, there have been positives and negatives in the Lakers news. Yet still, the biggest negative of them all has been the shoddy defensive efforts.