EL SEGUNDO — The Lakers’ Friday morning meeting heightened their attention to the team’s defensive struggles. And their Friday afternoon news was an example of why they need to have urgency when it comes to finding solutions.
With the team announcing that star guard Austin Reaves will be sidelined for at least the next two games because of a left calf strain, the Lakers will be without the player coach JJ Redick said had “carried” the team for the previous six weeks.
Redick confirmed after Saturday’s practice that Reaves’ injury is a “mild, Grade 1” strain, and that the 27-year-old guard is expected to be sidelined for a week.
“We lose one of our better players, and one of our offensive threats … it’s gonna call for everybody to pick up their game on both ends of the court to make up what we’re losing with him,” Marcus Smart said. “So it’s definitely tough.”
Reaves is averaging career-highs in points (27.8), assists (6.7) and rebounds (5.6), playing in 21 of the Lakers’ 24 games, with the team getting off to a 17-7 start. His absence comes during a period in which the Lakers have lost three of their last five games entering Sunday’s road game against the Phoenix Suns. Reaves is also expected to miss Thursday’s road game against the Utah Jazz.
“My motto, we know: Control what we can control,” Smart said. “And this is a perfect example of it. Lose three out of five, guy goes down; what are you gonna do? We saw the problem. We know the problem. We not focused on the problem. Let’s focus on the solution, and that’s what we’re trying to do.”
Even with Reaves’ on-court impact being felt more on the offensive end, any dip in offensive production or efficiency will put an additional onus on the Lakers to clean up their defensive issues.
The team’s 120.9 defensive rating (points allowed per 100 possessions) over the last 10 games ranks No. 27 across the league.
“It exposed us a lot, which we already knew,” Smart said of the team’s recent film sessions. “We were just winning a lot of games. We have to be able to guard. The scouting report against us is we’re not guarding people. And if we want to be great in this league and do what we’re trying to do, you have to be able to guard, especially in the West.
“It wasn’t no sugarcoating anything. It was, ‘This is what we got to do.’ We’ve been asked, let’s fix it.”
The Lakers are confident they know the solutions to their defensive struggles.
“[The coaches] main [emphases were] we haven’t been aggressive, haven’t been physical,” Jarred Vanderbilt said. “Haven’t been getting back on defense. A lot of stuff that we can control.”
In a sense, the Lakers are looking to re-establish the “banshee” culture – which highlights playing with intensity and hustle plays – Redick and his staff emphasized for most of last season.
“We’ve taken charges. That’s been good, that’s been a positive,” Redick said. “In the last 10 games, we’ve just completely lost our fundamental. The last two days in practice have been great. The guys have been great with how they’ve responded to our meeting [on Friday]. Doesn’t mean we’re gonna come out [on Sunday] and play amazing defense, but we gotta … this is my job.
“I’m not gonna just say, ‘Oh, we’re not gonna be a good defensive team.’ No. We’re gonna scrap and claw and do everything we can to turn us into a good defensive team.”
LAKERS AT SUNS
When: 5 p.m. PT Sunday
Where: Mortgage Matchup Center, Phoenix
TV/Radio: Spectrum SportsNet/710 AM