LOS ANGELES — While others might be wondering why, with two superstars, the Lakers are losing to sub-.500 teams, Marcus Smart isn’t one of them. He knows what’s wrong and it has nothing to do with scheduling, officiating or personnel.
The Lakers have enough offensive firepower. Luka Doncic leads the league in scoring (33.6 ppg) and LeBron James can still hit jumpers on 41-year-old knees.
What they don’t have, according to Smart, is defensive urgency, especially when teams get hot from the perimeter.
The Charlotte Hornets shot 46.5% (20 for 43) from 3-point range and 53.5% overall in Thursday night’s 135-117 victory at Crypto.com Arena, and the Lakers couldn’t seem to figure out how to slow them down. Smart said this is happening more often.
“It doesn’t matter who it is. The team or the player doesn’t matter. When they play (against) us, everything goes through the roof,” the veteran guard said. “If they were shooting 20%, they shoot 50% (against us). It’s unfortunate, but that’s part of the game. It’s tough. We have to figure it out.
“We must play (with) a little bit more urgency on that end, especially, and kind of impose our will. Teams are doing a really good job of picking straight matchups and picking certain plays that they want.”
Hornets guard LaMelo Ball, a former Chino Hills High star, was the latest outside shooter to torch the Lakers (24-15), going 9 for 17 from behind the arc. Miles Bridges added five more 3-pointers for the Hornets (15-26).
A few nights earlier, the Lakers’ 3-point defense was historically bad, allowing the Sacramento Kings to shoot 65.4% (17 for 26) from the perimeter, the worst percentage in Lakers history when defending at least 25 3-point attempts.
In that game, Malik Monk led the Kings in that department, going 7 for 9 from deep. Russell Westbrook shot 4 for 8 from 3-point range.
The Lakers catch a break this weekend, playing two less potent 3-point shooting teams in back-to-back games. On Saturday, they travel to the Portland Trail Blazers (20-22), who are shooting 33.8% from behind the arc. They return home Sunday night to play the Toronto Raptors (25-17), who are making 33.9% of their long-range shots.
“That’s the league we’re in and everybody each year gets better,” Smart said of the dependance on outside shooting. “Everybody’s working on their game. So, we can’t play certain guys on certain teams the way you probably used to. You got to be able to adapt.
“And that’s being able to understand that no matter whether shots are falling or not, we have to bring the physicality on both ends. The whole game.”
The Lakers rank 26th in overall defensive rating and 25th in defending 3-point attempts and when other teams start shooting, Smart said the Lakers’ offense tends to recoil. It happened against the Kings and again against the Hornets.
“We kind of allow that (how other teams are scoring) to determine how we’re going to play,” Smart said, adding that’s when the momentum swung in Charlotte’s favor.
The Lakers started the game by grabbing an early lead then stepped back and scored just 16 points in the second quarter compared to the Hornets’ 34.
Coach JJ Redick said his team tends to turn inward when opponents freely start making shots and Charlotte was “just another team that has a hot shooting night.”
“With our team, it’s against certain teams that have dynamic drivers, which the Hornets, they have some really good drivers and they have a ton of shooting, we can be a little bit cautious guarding the ball and if we do get beat off the dribble, then we’re in rotation,” Redick said.
Smart said that when an opponent gets hot, the Lakers’ urgency and aggressiveness tend to ebb and “that’s when things can start to get ugly and that’s kind of what happened for us.”
Smart added that “We got to figure it out. Nobody’s going to come save us. And we don’t need anybody to come to save us. We got enough of what we got here. We just got to dig down.”
LAKERS AT BLAZERS
When: Saturday, 7 p.m.
Where: Moda Center, Portland, Ore.
TV/Radio: Spectrum SportsNet, 710 AM, 980 AM