The Los Angeles Lakers suffered a disappointing loss to the Dallas Mavericks on Tuesday night despite the latter being without both of their All-Stars in Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving. Defense has been key to the Lakers’ success as of late, but they allowed the shorthanded Mavericks to score 118 points on 52.3% shooting from the field and 47.4% from 3-point range.
One of the reasons the Lakers’ defense has improved recently has been due to the insertion of Max Christie into the starting lineup. The third-year guard has done a good job of making things difficult on the opposing team’s top perimeter player, but in Dallas the Lakers just couldn’t get their defense together and Christie credited the Mavericks offense for that.
Christie spoke after the game, noting how Dallas did a good job moving guys around which affected the desired shifts the Lakers wanted defensively. This ultimately led to miscommunications which allowed for the Mavericks to get some open looks and get a rhythm going, via Spectrum SportsNet:
“They were heavy isoing so we needed to be in our shifts and in our gaps. They did a good job of moving guys around, kind of moving shifts out the way, and there was some miscommunication on our part to let up a 3 or 2 once they saw the first one or two go in and they’re feeling really good. Then they’re gonna shoot the next two or three contested ones and they made shots tonight. They shot damn near 50% from 3, so that’s tough to beat.”
The Lakers also managed only 97 points themselves, but Christie didn’t feel the Lakers were bad in terms of creating looks offensively, they just simply failed to knock down the open shots they got:
“I don’t think our offense was the problem tonight, we got a lot of great looks. Like you said, we missed a lot of bunnies around the rim, myself included, and we missed a decent amount of shots from 3. But I thought we did a good job with our rotations and putting them in closeouts. We shot open shots, so next time we got to knock them down and that will make it easier for us. But it’s tough to say that some of those missed layups around the rim, missed open 3s are not gonna hurt us. Those will hurt us for sure. So we’ll do a better job next time.”
It was a rough loss to say the least and now the Lakers return from their two-game Texas trip without a win. Christie and the Lakers will be looking to get back on track at home, but their execution on both ends of the court will need to improve if they plan on keeping this losing streak at just two.
Lakers’ LeBron James discusses growth of Max Christie this season
For Max Christie, this has been a career-year in every facet, but it didn’t start off that way. Christie struggled at the beginning of the year and fell out of the rotation, but continued to work hard and is now an important part of the Lakers’ starting lineup. And LeBron James praised him for being ready when his number was called.
“Early on he was in the rotation and then got out of the rotation then we inserted him back into the starting lineup and he just took off from there and just taking full advantage of it,” LeBron said recently. “So he’s ready for this opportunity and we’re happy for him.”
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