JJ Redick, renewed by the All-Star break, bounded via the halls of the Lakers’ enviornment like a rested golden retriever. His group had every week off and a clear damage report, a 30-game dash to the end with an opportunity to have their finest regular-season end since their 2020 title run.
There have been causes in all places to be excited. The 48 minutes that adopted in a depressing 100-97 loss, although, wouldn’t present any of them, the Lakers unhealthy on offense for many of the evening and unable to get a cease down the stretch.
“I think we played, I don’t even know, 39 to 44 minutes of pretty poor offense,” Redick stated postgame. “And some of that’s to be expected. Some of it was sloppiness, some of it was poor spacing, some of it was poor execution. I don’t, I’m not going to, the reason I’m not going to read too much into that is because I think our guys competed tonight and they played extremely hard.”
LaMelo Ball and Miles Bridges broke down the Lakers’ protection repeatedly within the fourth quarter, the Hornets looking Luka Doncic and attacking a protection sorely missing rim safety.
The Lakers missed a pair of key free throws, and whereas a LeBron James bailout three gave them some hope, his two possibilities at forcing extra time on the Lakers’ last possession rattled out.
“Those last two were pretty good looks,” James stated. “The first one was, obviously, much better than the second one. The second one had to be rushed a little bit. But I had good looks. We had good looks all night.”
James scored 16 of his 26 factors within the fourth quarter.
The Lakers’ gigantic midseason transfer, including Doncic in a commerce for Anthony Davis, basically modified the best way the Lakers are going to play basketball. And of their first recreation out of the All-Star break, they regarded like a group hopelessly attempting to determine all of that out.
The confusion, which began with 5 lightning fast turnovers from Doncic, cascaded right into a recreation stuffed with painfully unserious basketball. Austin Reaves double-dribbled in transition. Dalton Knecht airballed an open nook three. James couldn’t purchase a basket after a scorching begin and Doncic, the piece that undoubtedly upped the Lakers ceiling, confirmed his flooring, badly struggling in his third recreation with the group.
What the Lakers may be — a group that may assault defenses with elite playmaking from James, Doncic and Reaves, that may scramble across the courtroom on protection and create turnovers — flashed. So did the fact of what the Lakers kinda are — a group nonetheless studying each other and experiencing the inevitable rising pains even when going through one of many worst groups within the league.
“I don’t think anybody thought that it was gonna click right away,” Reaves stated. “I think everybody knew that there was going to be some growing pains and trying to figure out how do you … run everything, to be honest. Luka is, you know, a one-of-a-kind player, top-three players in the league, and he’s got to be comfortable being himself because, like I said, he’s one of the best players in the world so we need him to be him. It’s just going to take, you know, couple games, couple weeks, to figure out, you know, what that best looks like.”
The pains Wednesday had been so unhealthy they resulted within the Hornets ripping off a 23-1 run through the third and fourth quarters. The Lakers, who managed to guide by 13 earlier than that stretch, had been in that place largely as a result of Charlotte was even worse.
The Hornets ultimately discovered their rhythm; the Lakers actually didn’t.
Doncic made simply 5 of 18 from the sphere, hitting just one three in 9 makes an attempt. Reaves, who struggled practically as a lot, obtained ejected after two technical fouls within the third quarter whereas the Hornets made their push. And nobody may cease Ball (27 factors) and Bridges (29 factors) when the sport obtained tight.
Compounding issues, the Lakers head to Portland to play Thursday evening in what would’ve been their first recreation out of the break had it not been for Wednesday’s assembly with the Hornets, which was postponed by the Palisades and Eaton fires.
“Obviously we’re going to need a little time just to adjust to everything,” Doncic stated. “But I think it was fine today. I think we had some good opportunities to make shots, but we didn’t make any shots — especially me. So, it will just take a little time to get used to it.”
