Lakers: LA's Humiliating Loss To The Memphis Grizzlies Is Rock Bottom
The Lakers lost to the Memphis Grizzlies on Thursday night by a final score of 105-98. The Memphis Grizzlies were missing most of their team and essentially had a G-league roster on the FedEx Forum floor. The Grizzlies were missing Ja Morant, Kyle Anderson, Brandon Clarke, and Zaire Williams, as well as Dillon Brooks.
With that lineup on the floor, the Lakers had zero excuses not to run the Grizzlies right out of their own building. Instead, the Lakers ran themselves into a rock bottom hole by being outhustled all night.
The Lakers committed twice the amount of turnovers as the Grizzlies, 22 to 11. They also allowed Memphis to have twice as many offensive rebounds as the Lakers, 14-7. I can finish the piece right here because those two stats are how you lose a ballgame. However, the Lakers also lost because they were listless and apathetic on defense.
Those are some of the laziest defense sequences the Lakers have had all season, and that's saying something. Most of the game featured 'defense' like this. There is nothing more you can say than it comes from a lack of effort. That is unless something else is going on.
I recently wrote a piece defending Anthony Davis after Charles Barkley blamed him for the Lakers issues. It is amazing how much can change in two days. Bluntly, unless Davis is injured, his effort is terrible. The defense shown in the aforementioned tweet is putrid. Davis looks like he's playing 21 at his local gym. He doesn't actively close out his man, which leaves him torched as he goes for the dunk.
Davis isn't the only problem, however. Allowing turnovers and offensive rebounds leads to an ugly number like this: the Memphis Grizzlies took 94 shots to the Lakers' 78. If the Lakers want to even resemble a team that will fight for a playoff berth, they have to stop lazily giving the ball away, and they need to clean up the glass. No one player is at fault, it is the entire team.
