The Los Angeles Lakers started this season very strong, but this first road trip of the season has brought them back down to earth. While Anthony Davis has continued his strong play to begin the year, the Lakers have gone 1-3 so far on the trip with their most recent loss against the Detroit Pistons being particularly concerning.
The Lakers did not have the energy or effort seen at the outset of the season in Detroit and were simply outworked in their 115-103 loss. Afterwards, Davis echoed the sentiments of a couple of his teammates in feeling the Lakers failed to match the physicality of the Pistons, via Spectrum SportsNet:
“We just weren’t physical. They were very physical and were playing in transition, got open looks from 3. They made some shots early on but they just didn’t feel us early on either end of the floor. We were hitting shots but our defense wasn’t there from the start. We had a better second half but when you’re, especially on the road, when you’re trying to climb back into the game. Everything has to go right, you kind of have to have a perfect storm and even when we were cutting into the lead, one missed shot and they come down and score. It’s kind puts a little pressure on you to score. Then you miss another shot and they score again, it gets even tougher. So we did a better job in the second half but we didn’t do anything defensively, especially of how we’re capable of playing on defense.”
Even in their first loss of the year, the Lakers had a certain level of fight in them that was encouraging. But in these last three contests, it has been a bit different. Even the victory over the Raptors saw an excellent first half followed by an awful second and Davis feels the Lakers are two different teams at the moment:
“We’re just two different teams right now. One game, we’re this team who shows it can be one of the better teams in the league. Then the next, we’re this team who, I don’t even know who we are. So we just got to be better. It’s on the starters to start the game, obviously. But we just got to be better as players to come out and execute the game plan and do what we’re supposed to do on both ends of the floor. Some halves we do it, some halves we don’t. Some quarters we do, some quarters we don’t. We got to put a full 48 together. We can’t continue to do this if we expect to do anything this season.”
As Davis said, it is the inconsistency that is concerning. The Lakers have proven they can compete at a certain level, but they must do it night in and night out. Against the Pistons it was the defense that failed the Lakers and Davis took responsibility for coming up short there:
“Everywhere. We’re giving up 3s, they’re getting into our paint, offensive rebounds… We got to be better protecting the paint. I wasn’t good at all tonight protecting the paint. That’s on me. We got to do a better job as a unit of helping everyone, presentation that we talk about with scoring guards like Ivey and Cunningham. Obviously we got to take pride individually to guard the basketball. But basketball is not a one-on-one sport, so we got to be better. They were literally getting whatever they wanted to start the game and that entire first half.”
Ultimately, it is on the entire team, coaches and players, to identify the issues and work to fix them. The Lakers have one more game to salvage this road trip, but it will take consistent effort and execution for this team to accomplish something this season.
Anthony Davis discusses aggravating foot injury vs. Pistons
Even with all of the criticisms, the most concerning thing coming out of the Lakers loss to the Pistons was the health status of Anthony Davis.
Davis aggravated a foot injury near the end of the game, even needing to sit on the court at one point after a timeout was called. While he remained in the game, the Lakers star revealed that the injury is something he’s been dealing with since the summer and plans to take things day by day going forward.
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