The Los Angeles Lakers are struggling.
With two of the most dynamic players in the league, including the NBA’s leading scorer, Luka Doncic, the Lakers’ glaring weakness is on defense.
That weakness once again showed up in a 119-96 Christmas Day home loss to the Rockets, which Houston led wire-to-wire and had six players score in double figures.
The Rockets shot 53% for the game and outrebounded Los Angeles 48-25, which lost for the third straight game.
That effort caused Lakers head coach JJ Redick to call out his team after the game.
‘We don’t care enough right now,’ Redick said. ‘And that’s the part that bothers you a lot. We don’t care enough to do the things that are necessary. We don’t care enough to be a professional.’
Redick said that Saturday’s practice will be ‘uncomfortable,’ because he’s ‘not doing another 53 games like this.’
‘The two words of the day were effort and execution,’ Redick said. ‘And I feel like when we’ve done both of those things at a high level, we’ve been a good basketball team. When we haven’t, we’re a terrible basketball team. And tonight we were a terrible basketball team. And that started legitimately right away.’
Los Angeles (19-10) still leads the Pacific Division, and gets back in action at home on Sunday against the Sacramento Kings (7-23), who have the worst record in the Western Conference.