The Lakers have been riding a roller coaster all season, but even though they have a propensity to win small and lose big, the year has still had more highs than lows. That’s in danger of flipping at an inopportune time, though, because after losing their third straight last night, this feels like the most adversity L.A. has faced all year.
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The Suns were without Devin Booker and Dillon Brooks, but they still managed to beat the full-strength Lakers anyway. For the second game in a row, L.A. lost in heartbreaking fashion, this time on a Royce O’Neal 3 with under two seconds to go, a shot made all the more heartbreaking by the fact that the Lakers had fought back from down 12 in the fourth quarter.
But O’Neal’s shot and Austin Reaves’ missed buzzer beater spelled doom for them once again. The Lakers were right in the mix for the 3-seed in the West, but their recent skid has dropped them to sixth, and they’re just a game ahead of the Suns to stay out of the play-in. The Suns also clinched the tiebreaker with last night’s win.
Being the NBA’s most famous team is great when things are going well, but when a fallow period hits, all the negatives are magnified, and that’s when the finger-pointing starts. After the game last night, former Laker Danny Green turned his attention to Luka Doncic for what he did on both ends of the floor.
“They were attacking Luka,” he said. “That was the game plan, which most teams are gonna do. Not just because he’s a terrible defender, but he’s the weaker defender of the Lakers.”
Luka has had to hear it about his defense constantly his entire career, so Green’s criticisms there weren’t much of a surprise. What was surprising though was how Green also had something to say about Luka’s offensive performance.
“We love these nights from Luka, but do we say take a little off to have more ball movement?” Green wondered. “Luka had 40, let’s get 30 and see if Bron and Austin and other guys can get involved.”
Is Green’s criticism fair? Honestly, it feels pretty rough. Luka finished with 41 points, 8 rebounds and 8 assists, and though the Suns definitely did try to isolate him on defense whenever possible, they still finished with 113 points, which is basically their season average. Grayson Allen had 28, but he was only 9-24 from the field.
Luka was a +9 for the game, so you can’t pin this loss on him. Deandre Ayton, at the very least, has to share the blame . The Lakers center scored only two points and grabbing just four rebounds. He finished the game at -24, a number all the more egregious given his recent “I’m not no Clint Capela!” proclamation.
The Lakers acquired Luka just over a year ago at the trade deadline, and the front office has tried since then to put a team around him that makes sense. That work isn’t nearly complete, but it’s also not Luka’s fault that the roster isn’t where it needs to be yet. He showed in Dallas that he can take a team to the Finals, so the pressure is on Rob Pelinka this offseason to find the right pieces.
In the meantime, it’s clear that Luka’s offensive brilliance probably won’t be enough to get the Lakers anywhere meaningful this season. His defense is still a work in progress, but there are other, more deserving culprits to blame for the team’s problems.
