Los Angeles Lakers have a bad habit late in close games

A common trend is beginning to form for the Los Angeles Lakers at the end of games that is troubling.

Watching Los Angeles Lakers games late at night here in Connecticut, it is easy to notice a bad habit the team has developed when the game is on the line. Despite being on the East Coast, League Pass provides the opportunity to see these developments occur. In person, against the New York Knicks at Madison Square Garden on Sunday, it happened, first hand.

The Lakers have kept games close for the most part this year. There have been blowout wins and losses, of course, but often times the game comes down to the last few minutes. In those tight games, a troubling trend has begun since the All-Star break.

With the Lakers either trailing by or leading by, around 5-10 points with only a few minutes remaining in the game, they really turn up the defense and actually get stops. However, on offense, they panic and don’t stick to the game plan.

Multiple times with the game on the line, I’ve watched the Lakers get multiple stops in a row, only to fail to execute on the offensive end.

Often times they have gotten lucky to get such multiple stops. A careless turnover by the other team, grabbing an offensive rebound, or stealing the ball grants them extra opportunities to seal the win as well. But, they just cannot seem to score despite having success stopping the other team.

Here’s how the last 3 minutes went down during Sunday’s game against the Knicks.

Lakers are up by nine with under three minutes to play.
Kyle Kuzma turns the ball over.
Knicks commit an offensive foul, Lakers get the ball back.
Kentavious Caldwell-Pope misses a 3-pointer.
Knicks’ Mario Hezonja misses a 3-pointer, but DeAndre Jordan grabs the offensive board, and Hezonja hits the 3-pointer on his second try. (Lakers up by six).
Alex Caruso gets fouled but misses one of the free throws. (Lakers up by seven with two minutes left).
Knicks’ Damyean Dotson gets a bucket, cuts lead to five and the Lakers start to panic.
LeBron misses a 3-point shot, but the Lakers get offensive rebound!
The ball gets stolen by Knicks and DeAndre Jordan draws a shooting foul.
Jordan makes both free throws, cutting the lead to three.
LeBron drives to the basket and gets blocked by DeAndre Jordan. The Lakers get the rebound but miss another opportunity to score.
Knicks’ Dotson cuts the lead to one with a layup. (Lakers are up by one with 30 seconds left).
LeBron misses a jump shot.
Knicks’ Emmanuel Mudiay gets fouled and makes both free throws. (Lakers down by one with 22 seconds left).
LeBron attempts game-winning buzzer-beater and gets blocked by Mario Hezonja.
Knicks have now gone on a 13-to-1 run and the Lakers lose by one.

The Lakers seem to panic in these tight late-game situations. They could only muster up one point in the final 3 minutes and 45 seconds, despite multiple second-chance opportunities.

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Instead of playing how they play during the rest of the game, they panic. They go into isolation basketball instead of passing the ball around. They miss crucial free throws. Opponents grab offensive rebounds for extra scoring chances, but Los Angeles does not score when they get an offensive board of their own. Turnovers also hurt the team.

Instead of sticking to the plan that got them the lead in the first place, the offense just falls apart, as you can see by the pathetic sequence above. I honestly think they panic and it causes them to lose the very winnable game.

I’ve noticed this trend watching on TV a lot lately, and on Sunday, I saw it in person. Last time I was at MSG, it was Kobe’s last game there. They lost, but that was a good memory.

But hey, if LeBron had hit that game winning buzzer-beater, then I’d have another great memory from Madison Square Garden.

dark. Next. 5 Lakers Goals For The Remainder Of The Season

Has anybody else noticed this trend or “bad habit”? Let us know in the comments below!

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