Los Angeles Lakers: Defense optional in loss to Portland, 4 Lessons

Dennis Schroder showed why some see him as a liability for the Los Angeles Lakers! 

The Dennis Schroder deal was a good one for the Lakers. It was an upgrade from Danny Green and it saved a few hundred thousand dollars on the salary cap. Since then, the debate of how well Schroder can help this team based on media narratives began.

Schroder is supposed to be the point guard that can take over the playmaking duties when LeBron James plays off the ball. Outside of the Dallas game, when have you seen the man run an offense? We’ll wait.

Dennis Schroder scored the ball very well for the Lakers. He was aggressive with his drives to the lane keeping the Portland defense on its heels. He scored 24 points, grabbed 4 rebounds and dished out 4 assists. He was seen going back and forth with Damian Lillard at times during the game.

Well his conversations seemed to wake Dame up. Lillard proceeded to give the Lakers the business in the second half. What’s worse, the Lakers’ offense was disjointed all night long. How bad was this?

• LeBron James was going crazy in the first few minutes of the game scoring nearly half of his point total. He didn’t get the ball with any consistency until the last quarter. 
• Kentavious Caldwell-Pope was red hot from the 3 point line knocking down his first three shots from distance in the first quarter. He only finished with 14 and was basically taken out of the offense.
• Can anyone explain in what world AD finishes with less shots than Dennis Schroder? 

As soon as Schroder and Lillard started trash talking, Dennis started going to the basket looking to score points. The Blazers or any NBA team will allow this scenario to happen any day of the week.

Let’s talk about the defensive side shall we?

Let’s get this on record now. Dennis Schroder plays lousy defense at times. In this video, Robert Horry talks about how the Portland guards killed the Lakers from the 3 point line. Check the video of how undisciplined Schroder plays on defense.

• First play: Lillard gets free and Schroder get left flat footed and allows Dame to hit a wide open jumper.
• Second play: Schroder runs wildly out to the 3 point line to contest Lillard. It’s so undisciplined that a simple pump fake gets Dame free for the 3 point shot. 
• Third play: Look how far off Schroder is allowing Lillard to bring the ball up at his own pace. Then he dies on the pick from Rodney Hood which leaves Kyle Kuzma on an island as the Lakers give up yet another easy 3 point shot. 

This is the reason why Lake Show Life thought Wesley Matthews would be in the starting lineup. The staff saw this defense all preseason long. The problem is that Wesley is playing so badly, nothing is going to change!

Ask the Atlanta Hawks why they lost a ton of games while Schroder got his numbers.

As bad as Schroder’s defense was in this game, he was far from being alone. Read on to see the bad deficiencies in the Lakers defense.