The Los Angeles Lakers suffered their first loss of the new NBA season on Tuesday to the Portland Trail Blazers, and the way they lost wasn’t too surprising. They scored 129 points on 56.3% field-goal shooting, but they allowed Portland to make 59% of its shot attempts, resulting in a seven-point defeat.
Portland came out on top in this game thanks largely to its outside shooting. It made seven 3-pointers in the fourth quarter, and its three main guards — Ja Morant, Damien Lillard and Jrue Holiday — all did lots of damage, as the three men scored over 20 points apiece and 66 points combined.
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Defense, especially perimeter defense, was a big focus for the Lakers coming into the regular season. Coach JJ Redick said that their defensive discipline wasn’t there during Tuesday’s game.
“We just got broken down a lot,” Redick said. “I thought the game plan discipline, KYP (know your personnel), personnel discipline wasn’t where it needs to be, and I think sometimes early in the season these are good learning lessons that we can all apply, both as coaches and as players.”
At this point of the season, games such as this one can serve more as information than as a red flag, especially when it comes to defense. Certain minutiae within the Lakers’ defensive strategy will need to be tweaked, and of course, the team needs to build chemistry, given that it has nine new players on its roster.
On the other hand, Tuesday’s game was also a shootout, and therefore, to a certain extent, it may simply have been a case of the Blazers being able to make more shots down the stretch while the Lakers cooled off considerably after scoring 73 points in the first half and 103 points through three quarters.
The good news for the Lakers is that they will get right back to work on Wednesday against the Los Angeles Clippers, which means that they can right their wrongs quickly and get back on the right track.
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This article originally appeared on Lakers Wire: JJ Redick: Lakers lacked defensive discipline during Tuesday’s loss
