The Los Angeles Lakers suffered another disappointing loss on Thursday night, getting blown out by the Charlotte Hornets on their home court.
These type of losses have become a theme for the Lakers as they have struggled against athletic, physical teams all year.
Charlotte’s physicality clearly impacted them in the loss as the Lakers were seen complaining about a number of no-calls by the officials instead of getting back on defense.
After the game, Marcus Smart made it clear that needs to stop, even if they have a case.
“It definitely doesn’t help. [When] you think you got fouled or a call that should’ve been called, instead of getting back, we’re talking to the officials a lot. That definitely doesn’t help,” Smart said. “I don’t think that has anything on why we are losing. We do a good job of getting to the free throw line. Obviously, you want to get there more, but that’s just how the game has been called. We have to be able to adapt to it and understand that we’re just not getting there. The calls aren’t being called for us, that’s OK. We got to play on it then onto the next round.”
Foul calls are down across the league in recent weeks as officials are letting teams play with more physicality. With that being said, Smart urged his team to match that physicality and even foul more.
“We just got to start fouling. As I was saying, they can’t call them all. The toughest team sets the rules. So we just got to come out. We just got to be aggressive whether they call it or not. We can’t change how we play because of it,” Smart said.
Playing with physicality and getting away with fouls is a skill that Smart has mastered throughout the course of his career. The issue is the Lakers lack players like that on their roster outside of him, which makes it tough to adjust when the officials are letting them play, as they did on Thursday.
LeBron James and Luka Doncic are both known for complaining about calls a lot, but hopefully Smart’s comments get taken to heart as it is impacting the Lakers in a negative way.
JJ Redick on Lakers’ defensive struggles
The Lakers gave up 135 points to the Hornets and head coach JJ Redick diagnosed what went wrong defensively in the loss.
“I saw the same thing everybody else saw. They made some ridiculous shots,” Redick said. “You’re gonna have certain breakdowns in your defense and that third quarter, that could have been really deflating for our team and it wasn’t. We kept fighting and played some really good basketball. I think in general, with our team, it’s against certain teams that have dynamic drivers, which the Hornets, they have some really good drivers and they haven a ton of shooting. We can be a little bit cautious guarding the ball and if we do get beat off the dribble, then we’re in rotation. I thought our low-man was awful all night and so we’re scared of the drive.
“And then, we’re just too far off from the body. There was some of that tonight and that’s a good offensive team. They had 150 against Utah and blew out OKC at [Oklahoma City]. I think everybody, our coaching staff and the guys in the locker room, we all knew that. They got our full respect and attention pregame and [I] thought we fought. Just another team that has a hot shooting night.”
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