The Los Angeles Lakers aren’t having the best of the seasons. This has already been established throughout the 2021-22 NBA season. The Purple And Gold have lost points in fixtures that should be easy points for a team of that caliber.
Although the Lakers have been struggling the entire season, things have gone past the boiling point post-NBA All-Star break. Even in that time frame, their most recent defeat was at the hands of the Houston Rockets.
This season the Rockets are the worst team in the West record-wise. But even among them, the Lakers were outplayed, particularly when it came to defense. After the regulation time was over, the game went to OT and that’s where it seemed like the Lakers gave up on the game.
They played little to no defense and even LeBron James, who is usually their best player, didn’t look interested in helping out his teammates on the defensive end of the floor.
But was it entirely James’ fault? He has already handled a lot of criticism for giving up on an easy layup towards the end of the game, where he passed the ball to Carmelo Anthony.
Well, popular YouTube channel “Heat Check” dissected the last few minutes of the game and explained at what point did James actually gave up on the game. Here is what the YouTube channel revealed:
“This is the moment where Lebron James finally gave up on this game.
On the drive the help comes and he finds Westbrook wide open literally at the rim. There is no way possible that he misses this. Yet he somehow blows this layup. And you can see that James exhales with disappointment and doesn’t even try to get back on defense. For comparison, notice that Eric Gordon is right next to him. So as the Rockets go in transition, Gordon outhustles him and finds himself wide open from downtown, so as Lebron casually jogs back, we see the final nail in the coffin for the Lakers in this game.
Last night was a culmination of the fiasco season for the Lakers so let me show you and analyze all the lowlights from this game. What up everybody, my name is Stefan and this is Heat Check. Let’s get into it.
What you’re about to see will completely blow your mind. D.J. Augustin fires away in transition and hits the 3. So not only is this after a made basket, but the ball goes out in the stands giving the Lakers even more time to set up the defense. The Rockets slowly bring it up the court, and watch this. Augustin is not over here with Gordon, nor with the guards up top, but rather fighting against the 6 inches taller Kenyon Martin Jr. right under the basket. Nobody notices or even tries to help.
You hope to get this out of a time out, and the Lakers gave it to Houston on a set defense. The easiest points of the night.
But this is just the beginning of the circus. In this situation, James gets it stolen right here, and in this moment, Porter Jr and Sengun are about in line with Monk and Lebron. But then as they start going the other way, you see James chillin, and why the heck is Monk running way out here chasing after nobody. Meanwhile Porter and Sengun are now at the basket forming a 3 on 1 and we got the dunk.
Here’s another easy shot after a defensive breakdown by LA. Westbrook picks up Schroeder in transition but look at this. This is a quasi screen here, Martin is literally just standing and Russell shows absolutely zero effort to stick to his man.
I guess he assumes that Monk should switch but there’s no communication and check out all the space that Schroeder has for this shot. Of course he knocks it down.
Speaking of lack of communication, on this jump ball, they are completely disoriented about who’s guarding who, and Josh Christopher just walks his way into yet another wide open 3 point shot. This is unbelievable.
And what happens here is straight up shocking. On the shot we got 4 Lakers under the basket against Kenyon Martin Jr. But he outhustles all of them to get this rebound, and lay it in.
You see with all of these examples that the reasons for these baskets are things like effort, communication, commitment, communication. This is not something that you can blame 1 person for. This is not solely Frank Vogel’s fault. Nor is Russell Westbrook the only one to blame…although he is to blame for these legendary bank shots, but that’s another story.
This is a team dysfunction, at multiple levels, you don’t get rid of a single person and make everything right.
This is multiple players and even front office members for constructing this team the way they did.
I mentioned the situation with Augustin under the basket. But the fact of the matter is that dude got destroyed regardless of who he was up against. The guy is a walking mismatch.
What did the Lakers expect to happen by signing him?The same can be said about Carmelo.
Jalen Green emphasized not once but twice how the entire game plan for the rockets was to go at Anthony and as you can see in these videos that’s exactly how they got the win at the end.
He is holding on for dear life in one situation, and backing away, not even trying to contest as was the case right here on this 3 pointer by Green.
I can only imagine how hard it is for Lakers fans to watch these defensive breakdowns possession after possession.
So with no signs of getting Davis back soon, and losing to the worst team in the NBA in a horrific fashion I feel like I’m seeing signs from the Lakers that they are slowly letting go of the rope. I hope I’m wrong but boooy tell me if it doesn’t look the same to you.”
It was an amazing breakdown of the defensive struggles of the Lakers. NBA fans agreed to this evaluation by the YouTube channel as they expressed their thoughts on the video.
Ricardo Feced Ibanez: “I agree with you: zero defense interest is their weakness. I mean, if the problem was just individual I think it can be fixed. However, the problem is in the whole team and it’s mentally.”
Nico: “Even if he missed the reverse layup, they can still get the rebound, there was no rockets around and there’s 3 of them under the rim.”
Emzkee: “Lebron can really makes everyone better, even Gordon!”
Widkey: “When Lebron gives up, the rest of the team see that and they start giving up too.”
Elmer Ayala: “Every starter hit a 3 on the Lakers in OT even sengun.”
Lewis Espigares: “Mother of god… This is probably the most demolishing vid about the Lakers situation I’ve seen, hahaha. Brilliant analysis, as always.”
Matthieu Saade: “Not only did LeOld blew the game winning shot , he’s giving opponents wide open shots . And they try to blame Russ and AD only.”
Shivang Bisht: “It’s been so long that Bron actually hustles and defends on the transition play. He has given up defense for more points, ofc you can rarely see his chase-down blocks but that’s all he would do on defense.”
Charles Lee Ray: “We all know LeBron gave up even before that shot by Westbrook, just look at the body language. He’s purely stat padding now, chasing the scoring record.”
Sorin B: “They had Caruso, Rondo, Mcgee, Howard and just let them go. They were the defensive anchors on the championship run.”
This is not the first time that LeBron has been criticized for his lack of effort on the defensive end. Against the Mavericks, James didn’t get back to defense and complained to the refs for some reason. NBA fans didn’t hold back at that point and even claimed that Michael Jordan or Kobe Bryant wouldn’t do such a thing.
Anyway, with time against LeBron and co. they have a little time to figure things out. To be totally honest, it feels like the season for the team is already over, even if they somehow manage to get into the playoffs.
