The Lakers were thought to be a top defensive team because they had a coach like Darvin Ham who was focused on defense and a lot of stability going into the season. The Lakers are ninth in the NBA in Defensive Rating (113.4), so that hasn’t happened yet.
Another reason the Lakers aren’t doing as well as they should on defense is that they have been hurt. For the first 20 games of the season, Jarred Vanderbilt missed 20 games because of a left heel bursitis. He is one of the team’s best wing defenders.
Key players getting hurt is one reason why this team has had some problems, but it’s not the only one. During his postgame press conference after the Pelicans loss, Anthony Davis said that communication was the key to getting this team’s defense promise to work.
“Our talking to each other needs to get better on defense,” Davis said. “Let’s talk about something, but then we won’t do it.” A lot of “Guys did this, but we were supposed to do that.” Guys are trying to do the right thing, but their plan or program isn’t the right thing. Those are the little things that can make or break a basketball game…”We just need to get better at that, pay more attention to the little things, and stop being so hard оn ourselves.”
A few of these facts were used against the Pelicans. LeBron James gave the ball to Jose Alvarado, who stole it from behind because the two could not talk to each other. James’ teammates were meant to let him know when someone was behind him and trying to steаl the ball, but no one did. The lack of contact on the floor made James very angry.
Ham has stressed that communication and defensive effort are all part of the details that this team can’t skip if they want to be great. They’ve fallen short of the high expectations people had for them this year, but there’s still a lot of basketball to play and January has a softer schedule that has the Lakers primed to go on a run.
If they can clean up these issues and compete hard to start this five-game homestand, they can be as good on the court as they look on paper.