On January 24, Beijing time, the NBA regular season continued, and although the Lakers woke up in the last quarter, they finally lost to the Heat 107-113. In the last moments of the game, Horton Tucker made a sideline serve mistake when the team was 4 points behind, which directly buried the Lakers' last hope of overturning, and was also criticized by many people.
Frankly, Horton Tucker's mistake was fatal, and his performance of scoring only 5 points on 1-of-5 shooting in this game was also inefficient. However, it should be noted that when Horton Tucker was on the floor, the Lakers beat the Heat by 12 points, which surpassed bradley, the starting bradley, ranking first in the Lakers. This is enough to show that although Horton Tucker has had it, he has also contributed to this game. And Horton Tucker is just a substitute after all, and he is also involved in the trade rumors, so he is not the real problem with the Lakers.
So what is the real problem with the Lakers, or the main reason for losing this game? The answer is simple, or the Lakers' frontal defensive ability is too poor. In this game, the Heat's forward players broke out en masse, Butler got a triple-double of 20 points, 10 rebounds and 12 assists, Duncan Robinson, who has been in poor form this season, also shot 25 points on 6-of-11 shooting from outside the three-point line, and even the small forward Martin, who was a substitute, also scored 15 points.
In contrast, the Lakers' front line, Tucker made a fatal mistake, and the starting Ariza was worse than him. Ariza scored a point on 0-of-5 shooting and made as many as four turnovers in 15 minutes. Since his comeback, Ariza has averaged just 3.4 points per game and shot just 31.6 percent from three-point range. Obviously, age, combined with injuries, has led to the fact that this once good 3D player now has neither a 3 nor a D.
But such a veteran who is about to turn 37 is still the starting of the No. 3 position of the Lakers, in this case, how can the Lakers' front line not be a problem, after all, not every 37-year-old veteran can maintain an extremely good competitive state like James. Although Vogel still insisted that Ariza could regain his touch, Stanley Johnson on the bench was still a bit of a fighting force. However, if the Lakers can't get a really reliable forward 3D player through trade, even if the thick eyebrow brother returns in the future, their starting lineup will always have a huge weakness, and there is basically no hope of competing for the championship.