Los Angeles Lakers: 4 Lessons from loss to the Memphis Grizzlies

The Lakers defense…umm…yeah what had happened was…

The measuring stick for the Lakers success is defense. When the team is engaged, they win. When they don’t…

I mean, 35 points in the 4th quarter? The Memphis Grizzlies? This is a team that struggles to score. A team that walked into the Staples Center on a five game losing streak. You heard Luke Walton say it, let me cosign…

The Lakers were terrible on the defensive end!

Jaren Jackson Jr. has Zubac out high up top. Look no one believes that he has the foot speed to stay with Jackson. Jackson blows by and he dunks the ball. But look at the rest of the Lakers! No one anticipates the move (remember the shot clock was running down!) and rotates over to help out with rim protection.

How about this one…

The Grizzlies run a pick and roll and KCP gets caught trailing. Instead of stopping the ball and sliding over Kyle Kuzma and LeBron James watch Dillon Brooks go straight to the basket for the layup.

Right here, Marc Gasol and Mike Conley Jr. play the pick and roll. Two things went wrong here. Number one, Brandon Ingram did not fight hard enough through the pick (Remember this was the guy leaning on Anthony Davis on Friday!) and number two, the miscommunication between Ingram and Kuzma. By this time, Memphis had caught fire, and Conley drops the 3 ball.

More bad defense here…

Conley plays the pick and roll here with Jackson Jr. The responsibility to rim protect is not on Moe Wagner, it’s on Josh Hart and Kyle Kuzma. The pass goes through and there’s the easy lay up.

Folks the defense is bad and the players have a lot to do with it.

But here’s the problem that needs to be looked at…