The Lakers saw their win streak snapped on Monday behind turnovers and inconsistencies, two things that have continued to plague them this season.
LOS ANGELES - Time is a construct, but it’s made to be constantly in motion.
For the Lakers, time seems to stand still as they remain a frustrating team to watch, with an equal amount of hope mixed with frustration and despair.
On Monday, we got both sides of that coin, with Los Angeles stunk it up with their 18 turnovers but shot extremely well, going 54% from the field as a team and 46% from deep.
Los Angeles found themselves trailing by ten with 3:44 left in the game, but they didn’t go away quietly into the night. Instead, they clawed their way back and had a chance to tie the game in the final seconds of regulation.
With the Los Angeles crowd all standing, waiting to explode in holiday cheer, a LeBron James 3-pointer failed to fall and the Lakers dropped their second game of the season to the Pistons, who are four games under .500.
With the winning streak over, the questions that followed postgame were all about why the team couldn’t take care of the ball.
“We knew ahead of time that they were going to shock or blitz at times,” Redick said. “I’m not sure why we were so surprised by that. Then a number of them were playing in tight spaces and then a number of them were just dribbling the ball off our foot and dribbling the ball out of bounds, passing to Malik Beasley so he can make a three. They capitalized every time we made a mistake.”
Redick was right about former Laker Beasley cooking Los Angeles. He had 21 points and went 5-10 from 3-point range, which really opened up the game for Detroit.
The Lakers' turnovers are not an anomaly but more so a trend. Over the past five games, the Lakers have committed at least 18 turnovers on three occasions. You don’t need to be an analytics wizard to know that is not a recipe for success.
Part of the issue was L.A. opting to go with more small-ball lineups.
With Jaxson Hayes and Christian Wood both out and no signs of imminent return, Redick’s only big options besides Anthony Davis are two-way players Armel Traore and Christian Koloko. On Monday, he DNP’d his backup bigs and went small instead.
It didn’t work, as the team was outscored during those minutes and his guards were careless with the ball. On the defensive side, they couldn’t contend with the physicality and size of the reserves as the Pistons bench scored 52 points to go along with 38 points from the Detroit starting guards in Jaden Ivey and Cade Cunningham.
Redick was pretty short with his comments on how the small-ball units performed.
“Not well because we turned the ball over, but we like what we saw with Rui [Hachimura] at the five in Sacramento and wanted to give it a look tonight,” Redick said postgame.
Despite the small ball units getting annihilated and the Lakers allowing the Pistons to score 28 points of their self-inflicted errors, there were some bright spots.
Max Christie had his best offensive game of the season, scoring 17 points on 50% shooting. Gabe Vincent has clearly rediscovered his jumper, converting on three of his five 3-pointers, and Cam Reddish gave a gutsy defensive effort.
Unfortunately, whenever the Lakers get strong performances from certain players this season, they seemingly get a counter-performance as well.
Austin Reaves was a shell of himself, committing a team-high six turnovers. AD slept-walked for long stretches, blew a layup late and his free throw struggles continued, going 4-8 from the charity stripe. Even LeBron, as great as he was, missed an open look late to seal the team’s fate.
If there can be a kernel of positivity to Monday’s loss, it’s that the team didn’t quit. They were down by double digits late and could’ve folded and emptied out the bench. Instead, the Lakers fought back and nearly snatched a victory from the jaws of defeat. It’s not much, but it’s something they can hang their hat on.
“We didn’t let go of the rope,” Reaves said postgame. “We kept competing. We got some big stops, rebounds...So, for us to make that run and give ourselves an opportunity to send it to overtime is a positive, but at the end of the day, we lost and that’s the reality, losing’s never fun.”
Monday’s game was a microcosm of the Lakers season so far: bright spots littered around a host of negatives. It’s two steps forward, one step back for the Lakers so often this season.
Instead of heading into a Christmas Day matchup against the Warriors on a four-game winning streak, they are now again facing questions after another frustrating loss.
As much as things change for the Lakers, they seem to remain all the same.
You can follow Edwin on Twitter at @ECreates88.
