Crucifido’s Corner - Lakers vs. Wizards (Game 24)

Cruci's Corner

Lost In The Paint

It’s not bad enough you give up a completely silly loss at home, allowing a preposterous amount of points, but you also allow an opposing player to get a franchise high in points.

It doesn’t feel good when the shoe is on the other foot, does it Lakers? Remember this for every home game you play for the rest of your career. The road is tough, nobody ever denies that. However, you have to defend your home court at all times against any team, good or bad. You have to come out into every home game (road too, but home especially) with the attitude that this team cannot get over you in your own backyard.

The Lakers show that kind of mindset from time to time, but they also show some remarkably consistent lapses in focus. You can’t tell me that at the end of the year you won’t look back on the losses to Milwaukee, New Orleans and now Washington as games that could be the difference between starting at home or on the road in the playoffs.

This can’t happen on your home court this regularly if you expect to excel in the real season, the playoffs.

The real story of this game doesn’t come from the Laker comeback, or the scoring performance of Arenas, it comes from the lack of pressuring the Wizards in the paint when the Lakers had them on their heels.

Starting with the second quarter…

The Lakers were behind, but still staying within a reasonable striking distance. From some typically sloppy defense on the part of the Wizards they wound up out of fouls with 8;01 left in the quarter. From that point on you would assume that the Lakers would at least make an attempt to get into the paint via the post (any post) or driving. But, to the contrary the Lakers proceeded to get into the paint a total of 3 times. That’s it – 3 times in 8 minutes.

It’s not like the Wizards are some defensive juggernaut inside. In fact, they effectively have one big guy on their team (combining a lackluster Haywood and an often invisible Booth). They were without their enforcer, Etan Thomas, so the paint was wide open and waiting to be exploited. Instead, the Lakers chose to renew their all too common love affair with the 3 pointer.

Sure, the Wizards were giving the 3 pointer, but shooting from low percentage distance is never the way to win, defend a lead or get back into a game. It’s a sure sign of a team grasping at straws to fire their offense up. Without any player looking to rebound consistently, the Lakers were shooting long, losing the board and giving up transition points of which they were making a minimal effort to defend.

Just because a couple people on the Lakers have the green light and/or are capable of hitting threes en masse’, it doesn’t mean that every player on the team needs to “park on the arc and do nothing but stand still hoping the ball moves to them. They settled back into their “zone offense”, watching Kobe try to drive into a traffic-laden paint (something Kobe has a bad habit of doing anyway) without moving to spots or looking top cut, dive or get inside of the long range bomb.

The three pointer is an option in the triangle offense, no doubt. And yes, Radmanovic was brought in to extend the defense, but at no time does the 3 pointer or should the 3 pointer become the primary focus of your offense, particularly when you do have options inside.

So there we go, 3 drives and posts in 8 minutes and the Lakers failed to take care of a wide open chance the Wizards gave them.

Now onto the 3rd quarter…

At the 6:10 mark in the 3rd quarter, the Lakers were yet again staring at a Wizards team that was out of fouls and as far as I could see still with the same weak inside defense they’ve had for a couple years now.

Now you ask how many times they got inside in the 3rd quarter. Well, that would be a whopping 4 times. 2 drives and 2 posts in the paint, that’s it. 4 times into the paint when a weak front court team was out of fouls and out of inside defensive options.

Again, the Lakers decided to step back, play into the Wizards’ hands and jack up 3 after 3 in some bizarre attempt to break the team’s record for attempted threes (which they did, so I guess they accomplished Laker history twice tonight. That and letting Arenas score 60 for only the 8th time franchise history and the first to do it outside of Wilt – woo-hoo).

You may thin the game was lost because of only those reasons, but wait there’s more.

I’ve said it gain, but useless fouls miles away from the ball are absolute killers. In the throws of the 4th quarter comeback, the Lakers had chance after prime chance to get themselves ahead only to bump or play a man too tightly when it was totally unnecessary.

For the entire game actually, the Lakers seemed downright confused about how much space to give to Butler, Jamison and Arenas. Splitting that space between drives and shots isn’t easy at all; there are not a lot of players that can do it effectively night in and night out in the NBA.

That being said, you cannot push up against a player capable of slashing or getting a first step around you. The Lakers were often over-crowding their man on the perimeter, letting one simple step to the side or the slightest step forward to create space on a step-back shot to go off without any kind of effort.

If you want to get right down to it too, at the worst allow the player more room to shoot from distance. Odds are that the lower percentage shot is further away from the basket – right? Allowing players to get that first step around you and go in for a foul, dunk or lay-up or a three point play is purely absent-minded. There are a few players in this league that can hi8t the outside shot with consistency, but most of those4 players don’t have the ability to take it inside. Sure, Arenas has the ability to do both, but then asking for defensive help off of the (again weak) inside man on the Wizards isn’t a crime.

The Lakers were packing the middle of the key for no reason in the first half and the majority of the second half. Whether that was lack of faith in the inside defense to cover up mistake or be able to keep up with the powerhouse that is Haywood (release sarcasm button now – thank you), I don’t know. But certainly when someone is as on fire as Arenas was from the outside (along with getting around everyone the Lakers put on him) you may need some defensive help to at least force the bal into someone else’s hands.

Alright, here’s my last bit of whining for the night.

In an odd way I’m kind of glad this comeback didn’t result in a win. Don’t take this as me wanting the Lakers to lose in any way. I’ll take the sloppy ones as well as the pretty ones. However, something has to kick these guys in the butt so they realize that they cannot keep coming into every game with this lethargic gait about them. If comebacks keep turning out as a win, they won’t learn he lesson of not getting buried early in every single game. They don’t yet have the personnel or ability to flip the switch. Someday soon they may, but right now – they don’t.

They’re working themselves into early holes and have been able to make games interesting. But, this kind of lazy start to games is going to kick you in the butt sooner rather than later. It’s vitally important that the guys stop this lazy play in the first quarters of games right now.

There’s plenty of time left in the season to get this extremely bad habit eradicated before the playoffs hit.

As is my leaning, I’ll throw out a couple positives of this game, but honestly forgetting this game as soon as possible will be best.

1) Radmanovic – Looks like he may have found his rhythm within the triangle. He did a good job from the get-go tonight by getting himself involved and in rhythm through footwork. He’s played some decent games doing the little things to get his confidence up, but tonight he looked as if he leaped that first triangle hurdle – finding how you r game syncs up with the offense.

2) Bynum – Andrew changed the pace of the game in the 4th quarter (though mysteriously sat down by Phil when it was unnecessary to say the least). He was using his ability to intimidate and change shots in the paint really well. When he got on the offensive side of the ball he was quick to the post and asking for the ball without hesitation. They were all good things for Andrew to show, especially in the midst of a pressure filled 4th quarter.

3) Kobe – Again he did a good job of balancing scoring leadership with distributing the ball and trying to keep his teammates involved even when he was smoking hot in the 3rd and 4th. He was playing the defensive end of the ball with far better lateral movement too. The old defensive Kobe seems to be slowly poking its head out of an injury laden couple of months.

4) Luke – There really is a big advantage to Luke initiating the offense. The guy not only knows the system second best to Kobe, he has eyes open for all spots on the court. When he’s passing the ball, he immediately getting to where he needs to be and moving forward from there. You couple that with some serious tenacity on the defensive and offensive boards, and Luke threw down another decent game tonight.

Bottom Line is this team needs to learn how to both get up for each and every game, despite the opponent’s record and they have to quit getting behind so big so early.

Am I bummed and upset about losing this completely winnable game – sure. I just think I’m more bummed at the way they resorted to getting back into the game by playing away from the offensive and defensive schemes that have so far kept them towards the top of the NBA.

As with every loss, it’s not the end of the world. You have to take every loss as a lesson and work towards a positive from there.

P.S. – For those who were always touting Lamar as either unnecessary or not a key element to this team’s immediate and eventual success, I hope you’re taking note.

Veteran ClubLakers member crucifido writes nightly player analysis for each game of the Laker season.

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