Head coach Darvin Ham seemed to ease some pressure off him after the Los Angeles Lakers put together a modest two-game winning streak, but that good will was all but erased after a blowout loss to the Phoenix Suns.
The Lakers fell behind by double digits in the first quarter and spent the rest of the night playing catch up. It was clear that the Suns, who had lost the previous three meetings, wanted the win much more as they executed well on both ends to blow the game open in the third quarter.
Los Angeles had zero answers defensively for Phoenix’s star trio of Kevin Durant, Devin Booker and Bradley Beal as they combined for 86 of their 127 points. Booker and Beal, in particular, were nearly unguardable as they drained jumper after jumper despite some good contests from the Lakers.
While the defense was a major letdown, Ham believes the team’s downfall was their early turnovers.
“We turned the ball over. We had nine turnovers for their 17 points in the first half,” Ham said after the game. “I had to go back and look, but a bunch of them were live-ball turnovers. And they made shots, this team with a three-headed monster, guys that are accustomed to making shots with a hand in their face. That’s what they do. That’s what they’ve done, those three individuals their entire career. And so they made shots.
“I thought we were there at different times, forced them into some tough situations where they capitalized, But again, the story of the game early, especially that set the tone for them and really hampered us was the turnovers. You just can’t turn the ball over. You play great defense, you got to give yourself a chance to go back and attack the opposing team. And when you turn the ball over, especially live-ball turnovers, they’re able to get runouts, open 3s, open looks to get their confidence going. It can make it difficult, but no, never, ever do we scheme to give up open shots.”
To Ham’s point, Los Angeles wasn’t very sharp offensively as they seemed to be sleepwalking on the floor during stretches. The second quarter was when the game started to slip away from them as several careless turnovers allowed the Suns to widen the gap and never look back.
The Lakers wound up committing 18 turnovers in the game that resulted in 28 points for the Suns, compared to just 21 points off 13 turnovers for the purple and gold. Outside of garbage time buckets from the bench, the game was never close after midway through the third.
Ham also went on to speak about what it will take for the Lakers to be more consistent and ultimately brought it back to turnovers.
“There’s different circumstances that play into that inconsistency. We just have to figure it out,” Ham said. “I don’t want to sit up here and try to make excuses. But yeah, you want to feel like you can go out there every single night and give yourself a chance with the way you defend and the way you guard.
“Guys in this league, their skill level, it’s very few nights off. Their skill level is through the roof, and then you’ll see something similar to the Clippers tonight (with the Suns), whereas they’re not as methodical. They play with a lot more speed. You talk about KD, Book and Brad. And so one thing you have to do is give yourself every chance to be able to stop them. And when you’re turning the ball over, it’s really difficult to stop anyone when you give away possessions like that.”
This sort of loss will only make Ham’s seat even hotter and could even prompt the front office to make a move sooner rather than later. As is the case every trade deadline, the Lakers have been linked to several players, but with limited assets it’s hard to imagine a path toward some of them.
With less than a month to go before the deadline, it’ll be interesting to see how Los Angeles tries to dig themselves out of this mess.
Lakers’ plan is to remain patient with Darvin Ham
With each loss, it feels like Ham’s job is more in jeopardy. Ham has done a good job of not letting reports and rumors get to him and he reportedly still has the support of the Lakers brass as their plan is to reportedly remain patient with him.
