Weakness is extremely fatal for any team, especially a team that aspires to win the championship, and there should be no weak situation. However, this season's Lakers are exactly like that.
Entering January, the Lakers won a wave of four consecutive wins, which was their longest winning streak this season, and the helpless Grizzlies ended the Lakers' winning streak. Judging from the record, the Lakers lost to the top four Grizzlies in the West and there is no problem, and the next step to start winning again is. However, the Lakers overturned the boat in the gutter again, facing the weaker Kings, the Lakers once established a 14-point lead, and the Result was that the Kings dominated the game in one fell swoop and finally defeated the Lakers after playing a 40-23 offensive climax in the third quarter.
Russell Westbrook's poor performance is indeed the key to the Lakers losing the game, but the current problem of the Lakers is by no means a problem of Westbrook. If you think about it, the Lakers have flipped the boat in the gutter a lot this season. The Kings played four games with the Lakers and achieved a 2-2 result; the Thunder played three games with the Lakers, achieving a 2-1 result. To know that the Kings and Thunder are two teams that have never entered the playoffs, but the Lakers still can't take them, what is the problem?
Polite words like run-ins and injuries do not need to be said. No matter how bad, the Lakers also have LeBron James, Westbrook and Anthony Davis and others, as well as Carmelo Anthony and others, losing to weak teams such as the Kings and Thunder is justifiable. So, we might as well look for reasons from the Kings and Thunder to see how they beat the Lakers, and what they have that makes the Lakers more headache.
Let's take a look at the data: as of January 15, Beijing time, the Thunder have broken through 63.7 times per game, ranking first in the league, and they are also the only team in the league to break through the average number of breakthroughs per game to 60+. The Kings averaged 53 attempts per game, third in the league. From the data, we can see that the Thunder and the Kings are two teams with excellent impact, the Thunder have Shay Gilgers Alexander, and the Kings have Daron Fox, they are young and impactful players, and breakthrough is their main means of scoring.
In terms of scoring, the Kings have averaged 25.3 shots per game this season, hitting 11.4 hits, shooting 45.1%, and averaging 30.2 points per game with breakthroughs; the Thunder have averaged 24.6 breakthrough shots and 11.1 hits per game, shooting 45% from the field, and averaging 28.8 points per game. Here's another comparison: This season, the Jazz averaged 30.5 points per game on breakouts, topping the league, the Thunder in second, the Kings fourth, and the Grizzlies third with 29.8 points. This can be seen in the characteristics of the Kings and Thunder, they use more breakthrough points, in terms of the number of breakthroughs and the use of breakthrough scores, the Thunder and the Kings are the existence of the leading league.
Back to their game with the Lakers themselves: in the two games the Kings beat the Lakers, they averaged 60 times per game, took 27.5 shots with a breakthrough, hit 16 times, and hit 58.2% of the shots, and scored 36.5 points with the breakthrough; in the two games when the Thunder beat the Lakers, they averaged 66.5 times per game, used the breakthrough to shoot 21.5 times, hit 9 times, and shot 41.9%, and used the breakthrough to score 28.5 points. From the data point of view, the Kings in the game to beat the Lakers, the number of breakthroughs, shooting rate and scoring are beyond the season average level is a lot, the number of Thunder breakthroughs has increased slightly, but the number of shots and shooting rates have declined, but the Thunder in the two games to defeat the Kings average 11.5 free throws per game, and their season average level is only 8.3 times, when the Lakers can not stop the Thunder breakthrough, they lost more fouls.
So, the answer is obvious, the Lakers tend to have more than enough and lack of strength when facing teams with impact. This is actually the embodiment of the Lakers' outside defense decline, Westbrook, James, Anthony and other people's outside defense is not good enough, Malik Munch, Horton Tucker is not a top outside defender, Avery Bradley is a good defense, but unfortunately a person can not support the defensive system, and Bradley's age is relatively old. Moreover, because the outside defense is not good, Davis on the inside also needs to bear more pressure to make up for the defense, so his physical fitness will have problems, which will affect the efficiency of the offensive end.
It is reasonable to say that the Lakers really should not fall at the feet of the thunder and the king many times, but their performance is really disappointing. Of course, this is not a one-man problem, the strength of the Lakers' books is like this, there is not much room for adjustment, if you want to really get rid of the decline, I am afraid to start from the home star, the home star takes the lead in attacking and defending every round, the Lakers' morale will be improved, and then the team's record will gradually pick up.
Text/Duncan's laugh