Locked On Lakers - Daily Podcast On The Los Angeles Lakers - Lakers EMBARRASSED and BULLIED, Offense Disappears In 111-89 Loss to Boston

Starting point is 00:00:00 The Lakers are embarrassed at Crypto.com by the visiting Celtics bullied and battered. What exactly can they do to recover from this one that's next? You are Locked-on Lakers. Your daily Los Angeles Lakers podcast, part of the Locked-on Podcast Network, your team every day. Thanks to everybody for making Locked on Lakers. First listen to every day Monday through Friday, sometimes on weekends, even on holidays. And now more than once a day, no matter how, where you get your podcast.

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Starting point is 00:00:53 Brian Kamenetsky with Andy Kamenetsky, we've covered the Lakers for nearly 20 years with ESPN, with the athletic, with the LA Times, and in all that time, Andy, any game between the Lakers, in the Celtics has been a big deal, and that is why Sunday's results at the crypt was so disappointing. We'll get to that in a second. Who played poorly? Why they played poorly? What went

Starting point is 00:01:17 wrong? And more importantly, Andy, what might be done to fix it. But first need to let you know that today's episode is brought to you. By Fandul, use your profit boost on an NBA future and get entered for your chance to win a trip to the NBA finals. Play your game with Fandul, the official sports betting partner of the NBA. They didn't just lose, Andy, this game, 11-89, the Lakers, but this was like a thorough unraveling butt kicking that quite frankly embarrassed people with stakes in this. Like James Worthy, if you happen to catch the postgame show,

Starting point is 00:01:51 flipped over from Peacock to Spectrum Sportsnet. Like James Worthy was as disgusted as I've ever seen him following a game. This was really after the first quarter, a dismantling, I thought. Well, I mean, it's not just that they lost. It's how they lost. It's why they lost. It's certain patterns that keep repeating as part of the loss.

Starting point is 00:02:16 And to lose to the Celtics is always going to be disappointing for Laker fans, certainly for folks like James Worthy with deep Laker ties who really live, breathe, sleep, and truly, truly, truly take seriously the Lakers Celtics of it all. But when you happen to get beaten by 22 points to the Celtics at home on a day where Pat Riley gets a statue and Pat Riley is as associated with Lakers Celtics as any figure in Laker history in no small part because he represented leading the Lakers finally over that historic hump that they just could not get over for the entirety of the 60s, like all of these different periods where the Celtics were just this giant that they could not slay.

Starting point is 00:03:17 And eventually the Showtime Lakers, under Riley's guidance, took out the Celtics, you know, for championships and in particular the toughness that was always associated with Pat Riley and Pat Riley teams. And for all of the flash and showmanship of the Showtime Lakers, even the Showtime Lakers, it is appropriately ironic that physicality would be, I think, the single biggest reason that they lost this game by a pretty wide margin. Yeah, I mean, because remember, this was a game that they lost over three quarters because the first quarter was they were in it.

Starting point is 00:04:02 They were fine, you know. 28, 28 is in it. Right. I mean, but like, you know, there were, there were some, you know, bad possession. Like, Boston's a good team. And you're going to, and they're very good defensively. And they, you know, the way they are defensively presents certain challenges for the Lakers.

Starting point is 00:04:17 I get all that stuff. And like, you don't expect perfection against a good team every possession, you know, throughout the game. Boston may be flat out just better than them, period. They might be. You know, in terms of roster, continuity, construction, like how the parts work together and complement each other, they very well might be,

Starting point is 00:04:34 and Jalen Brown is playing phenomenally well, all that stuff. They lost this game over the final three quarters, and it was really, it was about seven minutes left in the second when, you know, and we'll get to the sequence. Marcus Smart, Austin Reeves gets teed up, essentially protesting a non-call on Marcus Smart. Smart then gets teed up for arguing for like an hour with the official, gave him plenty of leeway and let him walk away.

Starting point is 00:05:02 And Smart kept talking. Lakers picked up three technical files on the afternoon. And it just unraveled from there. The next play after that was a turnover and a dunk the other way. It just mentally, you talked about hustle and toughness and physicality. the Lakers were just bullied in this game. And it wasn't, like, I think people sometimes, Andy, associate, like, bullying, like you're beating beat up defensively.

Starting point is 00:05:30 They're knocking you around. They were bullied offensively. They were, you know, the physicality of the Celtics defensively had the Lakers coming unglued. JJ Reddick. I think both, actually. I'm going to disagree with that. Because early on, and the reason I'm bringing this up, early on, I think what was setting, what was setting the term,

Starting point is 00:05:52 of unhappiness for the Lakers early on was a lot of off-arm stuff with Jalen Brown and him whacking Marcus Smart a couple times in the face. And there were like legitimately, just off the top, there were legitimately some reasons that I can understand why the Lakers got frustrated in this game. To be clear, I am far more. displeased with how they handled their unhappiness than the source of the unhappiness because you still have to play through all of it. Right.

Starting point is 00:06:34 It's not, I'm not disagreeing with that part of it for sure. I just wanted to, I think it was, I think it was really overall physicality and terms of engagement that were clearly from the outset set by the Celtics. A thousand percent. That the Lakers did not seem interested in matching. What they really seemed interested in was complaining about it. And that's kind of where I was going. Like, I think defensively, like, look, Jalen Brown put up a big number in this game,

Starting point is 00:07:06 but not an efficient one. I mean, it was 32 points, needed 28 shots to get it. Peyton Pritchard obviously lit them up, made the difference with 30 points on 14 field goals. But, you know, like, in the year of our Lord, 2026, 111 points is not, you know, we've, we've had plenty. I put it this way, Andy. We've come in these postgame shows and, you know, next day's shows with a lot of complaints about a team that gave up 130, 140, 150.

Starting point is 00:07:37 111, you might lose. You shouldn't lose giving up 111 by 21, 22 points. Like, you shouldn't. Like, and Reddick, I think, caught a lot of flack. on social media after the game because he said, you know, our defense was, I forget exactly the word he was like, good at passable, good enough, you know, offensively they were atrocious. And that's where I really think they were bullied. It's like Boston's, it wasn't Boston's offense that was bullying them.

Starting point is 00:08:11 It was their defense. And, you know, they were very physical and they were, you know, very tough on, you know, making it difficult for Austin Reeves, making it difficult for Luca, making it difficult for LeBron. And it was just, you know, it was a game where the sort of non-physical nature of D'Andre Aden as a center was really obvious. Like, you know, just he, you know, it was, if he couldn't get to his spot, like, couldn't end, like, floaters were coming up short. Like, his tendency to avoid contact was was really obvious in this game.

Starting point is 00:08:49 and the Lakers just did not, could not either match or work around what Boston was doing defensively. And it's the same. You pointed this, and we were talking before the podcast, and I know it was something you wanted to get into. You've noted, like, when teams do this, Oklahoma City did it to them, Detroit did it to them. They're just like, you know what? We're going to come out and play really physical and dare the officials to pull us back. And if they don't, we know that at some point the Lakers are going to come unglued, or they won't be able to score, or they won't be able to run an offense. It is a pattern that we have seen over and over and over again that they have not been able to figure out how to fix.

Starting point is 00:09:36 Yeah, you mentioned that they had three texts. The third one was JJ, and JJ got a technical foul in about seven minutes left in the third quarter. there had been a couple of goaltending non-calls. One of them absolutely egregious. LeBron should have been scored a layup. It was a clear goaltending block attempt by Kada that was not called.

Starting point is 00:10:02 And then there was another one where Kada did, he went through the basket. Now he did not actually touch the ball. And that was ultimately what the league offices said was the reason, like, they went over it, that this should not have been called a goaltending because ultimately he did not interfere with the basket. His hand went through, under through the basket,

Starting point is 00:10:26 but it ultimately, in their minds, did not play a role of true interference. That seemed to surprise JJ Reddick. That seemed to surprise Reggie Miller and Jamal Crawford and the guy's calling the game. I've never seen a guy stick his arm through the rib and not have it called. Never have I.

Starting point is 00:10:41 You and I have seen at this point, in our career like thousand basketball games thousands of basketball games I have never seen them I've never seen that not called no but I bring up JJ for a reason and also

Starting point is 00:10:57 the leadership in general I want to make sure to get into coming up next let's do that next right after the break this question of leadership because I think I agree with you I think it is integral to what we're talking about here today Lockdown Lakers is brought to you by prize picks Shoot your shot on prize picks.

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Starting point is 00:12:42 practicing on Monday and I'm planning to be there. So I will pass along. What could they possibly have to work on? Well, just it's just more commentary about the state of of the team. Forget what they're trying to iron out on a Monday. This is a really important stretch for the Lakers, and they finally have the entire roster. Everybody is as healthy right now as seemingly they're going to be the entire season,

Starting point is 00:13:10 and they're one and one out of the gate, and their win over the clippers on Friday was frankly not very impressive. So there's a lot that they need to, get going ASAFP. I good use of the F there. I'm going to I want to get too deep into the we can maybe circle back to it but we'll call LeBron and Luca fine.

Starting point is 00:13:37 They were fine in this game. Some people disagree. Some people might think they were worse than that. Okay. AR Austin Reeves was not good in this game. It was a bad game and it was one that's going to start a lot of the dialogue again of you know, can he play against physical offenses and wings and is he worth the money? That might actually raise the question of can he play against physical offenses too.

Starting point is 00:14:00 Yeah. And we'll get to, you know, that over there. That's probably a deeper conversation than initially the postgame reaction. It is also worth pointing out that DeAndre Aiton, Marcus Smart, Rui Hachamura, Jared Vanderbilt, and Jake LaRavia combined for 16 points. That's five guys in your rotation playing real minutes. Aiton 25, Marcus Smart 26 took an offer on the night, gave up more points in technical files than he did in scoring them. Rui played 21, Vando played 11, L'Aravia played 24, and those guys together scored 16

Starting point is 00:14:43 points. Like that isn't enough. Like, you know, again, they got okay performances from LeBron and Luca, nothing you'd ever pin up on the refrigerator. You got a weak performance from AR, but like there was nothing else going on here. So I got a sense watching the game that some of what put Aiton on tilt specifically was he got in early foul trouble in Jackson. Hayes got hurt. Hayes only played five minutes in the game, right ankle injury.

Starting point is 00:15:14 We do not, to the best of my knowledge, know anything beyond right ankle injury. He didn't return. it looked to me like Aiton was super aware of being in file trouble and how much physicality can I get away with because I need to stay on the floor. Yeah, maybe. Look, I recognize physicality is not DeAndre Aten's strong suit. I'm not trying to present this as he is otherwise primed to Kenbe Matumbo

Starting point is 00:15:44 stylistically, but just this was the one time he was watching his P's and Q's. I just there were times to me where he looked like he was trying to avoid further foul trouble because he knew that the options behind him were non-existent. It doesn't change the fact that he did not play well. And this would have been a really good night for DeAndre Aiton to break out. He also did not really get the ball particularly often. No, he didn't. And, you know, I think he was, you know, he was trying.

Starting point is 00:16:14 So, I mean, early, he actually had a lot of pile. It was kind of piling up rebounds early. You can see him trying to be active on the glass. I'm not, I did, and I, you know, these are supporting players. And my point with DeAndre was just that he is not inclined to, he's not a big physical sure that you know, that you can, when you're getting kind of bullied around or he, you can't get him the ball. Boston did a nice job on the pick and rolls.

Starting point is 00:16:40 They made it hard to, to get, you know, smooth actions and stuff going the direction they wanted to go. That, you know, you can't have those possessions. where like let's get him involved by just dropping the ball down there and let him go to work a little bit. And like, and like you. And you could see it like his shortcomings stylistically were. And then the other thing is just like when you get into these physical things,

Starting point is 00:17:05 like those little floaters, he's been missing them a lot lately. We're going in down at like 60, 70% early in the year, have not been falling in just what has been a dreadful February for him. And I don't want to, I again, do not want to absolve the Lakers stars who were at best fine in this game. I was going to say that the story. And skip over Austin Reeves, who was not fine. Right. I mean, I just, you know, when you have that and then you have 16 points between five guys in your rotation, you're setting yourself up for real problems.

Starting point is 00:17:45 The Lakers couldn't shoot the ball in this game. whereas they were outshot almost by Peyton Pritchard himself. All of their flaws were right up front and center to the. Yeah, they shot 30% from behind the arc. They hit nine threes in the game. Four of them were Lukech. Luca, one of them was Vando. Like, it just was a bad, it was just a bad offensive night up and down the lineup.

Starting point is 00:18:10 Like, you know, passable nights, I guess, from Luca and LeBron, but not nearly enough of what you needed. Like you said, Austin was not a, Austin did not show up, really struggled offensively. It took them a while to find even the semblance of a rhythm. All the supporting players came up short. But the thing that I was starting to bring up before the last break

Starting point is 00:18:32 was that concept of leadership. And seeing Marcus smart as an example, get that technical foul. I thought was disappointing. A, because it just, it was part. of a cascading snowball effect of the Lakers paying way too much attention to the way the game was being officiated. Gripes legitimate, I will acknowledge that. A lot of the gripes were. There comes a point where who gives an F, you got to play. Like, you actually have to play. And with

Starting point is 00:19:06 Smart in particular, he is often the guy accurately who points out the importance of setting the terms of engagement and being the team that hits first and being the team that dictates the terms of how a game is going to be officiated. So to see Smart get so obsessed with arguing with a referee and eventually get teed up on top of Austin. He and Austin both got teed up at the 712 mark. Like not a second of game time passed between Austin's Tech and then Smart's Tech. What you want to see from Marcus Smart is telling everybody, let it go. Let's hit these mother-effers just as hard as they're hitting us and either, A, get away with the same stuff they're getting away with, or B, force the refs to reassess how they're calling the game, because after a while, they can only call so many

Starting point is 00:20:03 off-arm files against you before it starts becoming obvious that you're not calling it against Boston or whatever other thing that is up. Deliver it back. Right. And, you know, seeing JJ after the game still clearly upset about this, making sarcastic remarks about how, you know, I guess that's not goaltending anymore. Like, JJ can get as caught up in this stuff as everybody else. And I think that is in part because, you know, beyond the fact that JJ can be wired tight, JJ is also by nature argumentative. He is somebody that is very about the principle of matters. He is somebody that likes things to be letter correct. And I get it. You want the game to be officiated well. But at the same time, they're never going to be officiated perfectly. And you have to at some point be the guy that brings the team back to center and actually gets them back on the right track. And JJ getting teed up that early in the third

Starting point is 00:21:07 quarter. Again, I understand why he was upset. There was some egregious goaltending going on. But you have to be the guy that prevents this from completely going sideways. And there's just been too many times where it seems like JJ can get as caught up in this as everybody else. Like it's funny, Luca made a joke after the game that there were three tech. Yeah, there were three texts and none of them were me, so you know this must have been bad, which is a funny line. It's true. But while Luca didn't get teed up, there was a sequence where he did not get a call at one end of the floor and he did not get back at all. He was arguing with the refs, and it led to Derek White getting an open three.

Starting point is 00:21:47 And after the break of it, like, I know what he meant with that line, but there's another way to interpret it that is less flattering to Lakers. I'll explain next. Locked on Lakers is brought to you by Fanduel. You ever wanted to experience the NBA Finals live? I have been, it is awesome. Fandual is giving you three times, by the way. Fanduel is giving you the chance to turn that dream into a reality with the NBA sweepstakes.

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Starting point is 00:23:52 You go to Lockedon Lakers.com, or you can check out the show notes. And it's a great way to get a couple of perks for the show, a Discord chat that Locked on Lakers Discord chat for our listeners and people across the channel listeners to the Lockdown Network. You can talk to other hosts, talk to other fans, talk to us, us. You also can get the show ad free. And we know from your emails that is a big deal for a lot of you. And we certainly understand. It's $5 a month, $50 a year. Check it out. See if it is for you. You know, I knew what Luca meant. Like you knew like, Luke amended it was like, and you know it was a bad,

Starting point is 00:24:34 like a poorly officiated game when I'm not the one getting a tactical. Everybody else is so anger they're doing it. And like, you know, again, I, Austin picked up his technical in sort of spontaneous defense of Marcus Smart, who did get snacking. I'm not sure that's correct, but I'm, I was at saying, I'm pretty sure that's what he got when he was yelling at the he had been upset about some stuff before that happened with him. He was clapping at the ref in the ref's face. I don't know if this was about Marks.

Starting point is 00:25:03 I thought it was. That was my read on what happened. But either way, like again, the smart thing is particularly bad because he got to say his piece. Like he, the ref gave him plenty of leeway to, okay, all right.

Starting point is 00:25:22 You know, now you can tell when they do like the, okay, walk away. I heard you. Walk away. And then he didn't shut up. Like,

Starting point is 00:25:29 he kept going. And so, like, you just can't give away points like that. And like you say, as a leader, you really can't. It's just,

Starting point is 00:25:39 I think, you know, we have seen so many times. The Lakers are a team that badly needs to be able to draw calls. Like the offense is predicated on it. People talk about the foul differentials and this and that and all this stuff that show like the Lakers. Well, the reason they have to do these things is because they're, as we've seen repeatedly,

Starting point is 00:25:59 they are not a good outside shooting team. And, you know, the offense when it runs well, when they want to protect their defense, is predicated on getting the line. Luca needs to do it. Austin needs to be able to get whistles in order to open up a lot of, the rest of his game. And when he doesn't, it throws everything off. LeBron less now than he used to, but still some, again, needs to get to the line. When the Lakers don't do that, like nobody else can, other than those three guys with any kind of regularity, it completely throws them

Starting point is 00:26:33 off. And I would love like you just to see them, I realize it's not totally their character, but let's just see what would happen if the Lakers either were like, okay, fine. Boston, you're going to do that. We're going to smack you guys around too. And we're going to, you know what? We might get six files in three minutes, but we're going to get out there and we're going to be physical and we're at least going to stop absorbing all of this. Or start the game that way.

Starting point is 00:27:02 Yeah. Or shut the bleep up and just play. Yeah. Those are your choice. James Worthy said something after the game. that jumped out at me talking about the way the Lakers got out physical in this game. He said, quote, that's what pisses me off. When you're getting pushed around, when as a player, when you kind of know you're defeated,

Starting point is 00:27:24 I've done this before. When I know I'm defeated, you start to complain. You start to bitch and moan and you start to look at the refs. And in the meantime, Boston, they seemed happy. So Lakers got to decide. They've waited long enough. They're healthy. They got to decide who they are.

Starting point is 00:27:39 And that line about they got to decide who they are, I think you can take that a bunch of different ways. Like they got to decide who they are temperamentally. They got to decide who they are offensively. They got to decide who they are defensively. They have to decide what their identity is going to be on both sides of the ball. They have to decide to have the discipline and the focus to stick with a coherent offense.

Starting point is 00:28:10 Like this was yet another time where JJ mentioned the ball not moving enough and the need for trust among players to make that pass. I think, yeah, go ahead. And that is code for Luca LeBron and Austin. Like, that's

Starting point is 00:28:27 what he's talking about because those are the three guys who have the ball the most, but also two, when those three are not moving the ball enough. And I know that there were missed shots. I understand. understand that like there were assists or potential assists that could have been there that didn't happen because everybody kept missing shots, particularly from behind the arc.

Starting point is 00:28:48 I get all of that. Yeah. Some of those go in, all of this looks different. Right. Reeve has a different line. Sure. Probably has more space. All of that.

Starting point is 00:28:58 Sure. Sure. But they didn't. But they did not move the ball enough. I thought all three of the main guys had, particularly Luca and Austin, had shots that were forced in this game. And this, I think, A, it becomes problematic, just because it's not the best version of the offense.

Starting point is 00:29:17 B, it becomes problematic because whatever you want to get out of the role guys, you're definitely not going to get the most of them. For all the flaws with D'Andre Aiton, he can't get himself the ball. For all the talk about the things Ruey doesn't do, we know the one thing he does. We know the, and Rui did not play well in this game.

Starting point is 00:29:38 Right. Like, Rui didn't play well in this game. Like, the problem in this game was not specifically they didn't get Rui the ball enough in play well. But he's a guy that if you want to get the most out of him, he has to get a baseline amount of shots. Because if you're looking for the proverbial little things from Rui, you're going to be disappointed. Luke Kinnard is on this team to get a baseline amount of outside shots. Or, you know, he can do. more than just shoot, but it's the main reason he's there. But also, this is, I think, really maybe the biggest thing that comes from

Starting point is 00:30:17 not moving the ball enough. It really starts to accentuate some redundancies between Luca, LeBron, and Austin as offensive hubs and how there is not a ton of variance between the three of them as far as the way they generate offense stylistically for, themselves and each other. You know, there are little differences. Austin's got a little bit shake to his game. There's a lot of overlap in the Venn diagram. Right.

Starting point is 00:30:45 And, you know, I've talked about this before. This is among the reasons why I have felt pretty strongly that this needs to be the last year of these three together because I just don't think it, it does not work even offensively on paper the way you would think it would. And it damn sure has to because we know it won't work defensively the way it needs to. But if they are not moving the ball around in ways that at least attempts to get the most out of everybody, then you're really in a lot of ways left with three very similar versions of the same player.

Starting point is 00:31:23 And I think they become predictable to defend. Yeah, I mean, this is what I want. Not necessarily easy, but predictable. And I think that's fair. Like it is also too, like you know if you can kind of manhandle Austin and Luca and you're not going to get. the calls, that you're going to get three or four possessions a game, probably with each of them, where that's what they're trying to do, where, like, you know, they're looking for that whistle and trying to create that contact.

Starting point is 00:31:51 And if you know you can get away with it, it's not even just that you're getting these sort of forced shots from them because they're forced in the sense that, like, they're, they look awkward when they're not, if you don't get the whistle, but they're not forced in the sense that they are like a part of a offensive plan for those particular players. This is where, you know, sort of the ball mood, the physicality, all that stuff. It hurts not just on those on ball plays and gets everything stuck. It also is hard because not only then you get those guys sort of tunnel vision trying to create the contact, you also get other guys who are not strong enough moving through

Starting point is 00:32:32 contact, you know, setting better screens, rolling harder through stuff, just bringing more force everywhere they go on the floor. And then you end up with a terrible combination of forced sort of isolation, foul drawing possessions that get reinforced because there's nowhere for those guys to go with the ball, which creates more of the possessions, which like, it was just, it was a ton, like, there are nights when they're better than this. But this was a total offensive. But the knights are not frequent enough. No, they're not a good offensive team. They're not as good as you think they would be for that top three. But also, too, the knights that they are good are not frequent enough against good teams. Correct. Like this now takes them

Starting point is 00:33:18 down to 11 and 14 against teams above 500. Obviously, there's some context of who was missing in those games who wasn't, but at the same time, I'm willing to bet out of those 25 games they played against teams above 500, they went against at least a couple squads missing some of their best players, too. It just has not been consistently working as well as it needs to. And again, they've got 26 games now to figure out the highest possible floor and ceiling versions of themselves. And in order to do that, taking us back to what we began the conversation with, they don't have the luxury of wasting physical and mental energy complaining. Like they don't have time.

Starting point is 00:34:08 All right. So we'll get into more tomorrow of these questions, larger sort of big picture questions about Austin, about the roster, whether, you know, there are a lot of things that this game conjures up, none of them fun or positive, but worthy of a show. But we'll get to that. We will also talk a little bit about the Pat Riley moment.

Starting point is 00:34:29 and maybe who else is going to be next in Star Plaza. That was a fun. That was a fun ceremony, man. Cool, statue. Locked on Lakers on YouTube is where you can go hang out with over 37,000 subscribers to the channel. Remember the Everyday Air Club? Check it out. The show notes.

Starting point is 00:34:43 We'll see everyone next time.

Locked On Lakers - Daily Podcast On The Los Angeles Lakers - Lakers EMBARRASSED and BULLIED, Offense Disappears In 111-89 Loss to Boston

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