Lakers’ road troubles follow them home in sloppy loss to Heat
LOS ANGELES — The Lakers returned home after spending 25 of the past 29 days on the road and got to work resetting their goals, examining, in detail, their offense and defense and checking their effort level. They concluded they had the talent, just not a high level of competitiveness lately.
They might want to recheck that list before going any further for fixes. What should have been a happy homecoming Wednesday night turned into a long night of turnovers and missed opportunities in a 110-96 loss to a Miami Heat team that was playing without All-Star Jimmy Butler.
The Lakers (17-18) appeared to bring home the problems that led to them losing seven of their previous nine games on the road, shooting just 4 for 30 from 3-point range and committing 22 turnovers.
Coach Darvin Ham said the team needed to be consciously and consistently competitive if it hoped to turn around a season that seemingly has flattened out and fallen short of early-season expectations. The Lakers reached the Western Conference finals last season and won the inaugural In-Season Tournament, elevating the anticipation of a long postseason run.
“It’s just everyone being consciously competitive consistently, no matter who is in uniform, who’s active, inactive. It doesn’t matter. You’re an NBA player,” Ham said. “There’s a lot expected of you on a consistent basis. Just focusing on the little things, tweaking some things from a schematic standpoint, also just flat out playing hard and giving an effort.”
But injuries and patchwork lineups have left the Lakers searching for an identity amid uneven results and one four-game losing streak. Wednesday night – their ninth loss in 12 games – added to their misery.
The Lakers, playing without D’Angelo Russell (tailbone bruise), Rui Hachimura (calf) and Gabe Vincent (ankle) started Cam Reddish and Austin Reaves, who made his first start since Nov. 8, giving them another new look to the lineup.
“There’s real-life NBA circumstances sometimes that disrupt the continuity that you were hoping for,” Ham said. “Our biggest thing is that no matter who is in the lineup, as long as we play with energy, effort and discipline for as much of the 48 (minutes) a game as possible, we can live with the results.”
The Lakers struggled against Miami’s zone defense in the first half and failed to generate much offense. Turnovers (15 before halftime, 10 in the first quarter) also thwarted their attempt at getting off to a quick start to begin a month when they will largely be playing at home.
A rare off night by LeBron James didn’t help. He finished with a season-low 12 points on 6-of-18 shooting. Anthony Davis scored a game-high 29 points to go with 17 rebounds and five blocked shots and Reaves added 24 points and eight assists, but it wasn’t enough to overcome costly mistakes, poor passes and a balanced attack by the Heat.
Tyler Herro led Miami with 21 points, six rebounds and four assists and former UCLA star Jaime Jaquez Jr. had 16 points and eight rebounds. Nikola Jovic (eight rebounds) and Bam Adebayo each scored 15 points, while five others scored in double figures, including former UCLA star Kevin Love (10 points, season-high 14 rebounds).
The Lakers came out of halftime with more energy and pulled within 70-67 behind Davis’ 12 third-quarter points. He single-handedly got the Lakers back into the game with six consecutive points with less than two minutes left in the period. The Heat, who led by as many as 12 in the first half, pushed their edge back to five to take the lead into the final quarter.
The Heat, despite being without Butler, outscored the Lakers to regain a 10-point lead (84-74) early in the fourth on a 10-3 run. The Lakers didn’t threaten again.
Miami shot just 39.1% from the field in the first three quarters, but was 14 for 24 in the fourth, including 6 for 11 from 3-point range. Duncan Robinson had 11 of his 13 points in the fourth quarter.
More to come on this story.