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Los Angeles Lakers Defense Goes Poof to The Magic…Three Lessons!

By Ronald Agers

ORLANDO, FL - NOVEMBER 17: Kyle Kuzma #0 of the Los Angeles Lakers handles the ball against the Orlando Magic on November 17, 2018 at Amway Center in Orlando, Florida. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, by downloading and or using this photograph, User is consenting to the terms and conditions of the Getty Images License Agreement. Mandatory Copyright Notice: Copyright 2018 NBAE (Photo by Gary Bassing/NBAE via Getty Images)
ORLANDO, FL - NOVEMBER 17: Kyle Kuzma #0 of the Los Angeles Lakers handles the ball against the Orlando Magic on November 17, 2018 at Amway Center in Orlando, Florida. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, by downloading and or using this photograph, User is consenting to the terms and conditions of the Getty Images License Agreement. Mandatory Copyright Notice: Copyright 2018 NBAE (Photo by Gary Bassing/NBAE via Getty Images) /
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Los Angeles Lakers
Photo by Fernando Medina/NBAE via Getty Images /

The Los Angeles Lakers disappointed against the Orlando Magic. Here are three lessons from Saturday night.

On Wednesday, the Los Angeles Lakers laid out a potential blueprint of what was needed to be successful going forward this season.

There was excitement, hope and a whole lot of history…

The only problem is that the blueprint presumably got left on Luke Walton‘s desk and it wasn’t brought to Florida.

Hopefully, it will get Fed-Ex overnight expressed to South Beach, but in Orlando, the Lakers did not have it. That and a whole lot of other things.

The Los Angeles Lakers got beat down 130-117 to the Orlando Magic in a game that got away from them in the second quarter and was basically gone in the third.

After leading 31-25 after the first frame, the Lakers got outscored by 25 points in the middle frames. Nikola Vucevic just plain punished the Lakers time and time again scoring 36 points and corralling 13 rebounds.

What Vucevic was doing to Los Angeles inside was complemented by what D.J. Augustin was doing outside breaking down the perimeter defense scoring 22 points with the majority of the damage being done in the third quarter.

The Orlando Magic has some kind of voodoo working on the Lakers because this is now the tenth loss in eleven games on the road against the Magic.

The story of this game was about the lack of energy, focus and most importantly defensive intensity…

This is not to say that all the Lakers did not come out and give an effort. Lance Stephenson showed real grit when he was on the floor with 19 points, six rebounds, three assists and a steal in 22 minutes.

He led a late charge in the fourth quarter that made a few fans delay the early trip to the parking lot. But Lance…come on man! Really?

https://twitter.com/ESPNNBA/status/1064025401574465536

Stat chasing at it’s finest! With Lance, you have to take the good with bad, the bitter with the sweet and the ups with the downs. Then count to ten and breathe!

No one was more critical than I was on Kentavious Caldwell-Pope. You have to give this guy credit, KCP is slowly starting to get his rhythm back scoring in double figures for the fourth straight game with ten. But it was a missed dunk that impressed me the most.

KCP tried to tear the rim down on the break. It went off the back iron and went all the way back down to the other end of the court. This showed the aggressiveness and confidence coming back. He wouldn’t have even tried this early on in the season.

In other news, there was a Michael Beasley and Svi Mykhailiuk sighting! They played well and made plays during the late comeback. Svi knocked down a couple of threes which hopefully will carry on to future games.

Let’s get to it! Here are my three lessons!

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