LOS ANGELES — Do the Lakers even have an identity as a team?
They ended the calendar year with a hideous final 17 minutes on Tuesday night against the Detroit Pistons. Behind for much of the night, they had stayed close and pulled into a 79-79 tie on Luka Doncic’s three-point play with 5:47 left in the third quarter.
Then they folded. The final was Pistons 128, Lakers 106, and trust me, it wasn’t that close as the fourth quarter continued.
And that’s troubling.
Detroit outscored the Lakers 74-44 in the paint, 31-12 in fast-break points and 67-52 in bench scoring. Cade Cunningham, the fourth-year pro from Oklahoma State who came into the evening as one of only two players in the league to average at least 26 points, nine assists and six rebounds, went for 27 points and 11 assists on this night, and the Pistons were a plus-23 in his 32:45 on the court.
Yes, you can make the case that the Lakers have been playing shorthanded. Austin Reaves is out for a month with a calf strain – and keep in mind that calf issues can turn into Achilles tendon issues. Rui Hachimura also has calf soreness. Gabe Vincent has back issues.
So maybe it’s too soon to ask that question about the team’s identity, but consider this: The Lakers are 20-11, and six of those 11 losses have been by 20 points or more. Three of those have been in their last four games, with the only outlier in that stretch a 24-point victory over now 8-25 Sacramento. That victory now appears to be fool’s gold.
The other teams in the league who have that many or more 20-point losses – teams like Washington, Utah, Sacramento and Indiana – are all under .500, and in most cases well under.
“Still trying to figure that out,” Coach JJ Redick said Tuesday night when the question was posed of what exactly this roster’s DNA could be. “It’s maybe a cop out, and probably is. But I do know that we have had a lot of stops and starts and we’ve … really tried to play the right way every night, and have the right intent. The flow of lineups and rotations and all that has been challenging for everybody, not just the coaches. It’s a challenge for the players.”
Those comments, in a reasoned tone, seem light years away from the words Redick uttered on two occasions the previous week.
After losing to the Phoenix Suns by 24 two days before Christmas, he talked of his team’s willingness – or not – to make difficult choices, saying: “There [are] shortcuts you can take, or you can do the hard thing, and you can make the second effort or you can sprint back. Or you can’t. It’s just a choice. And there’s a million choices in a game, and you’re very likely not gonna make every choice correctly. But can you make the vast majority of ’em correctly? It gives you a chance to win.”
In other words, effort is a choice, and that night the Lakers chose the easy way, by his judgment. Two days later, after being routed by the Houston Rockets, 119-96, Redick’s words were more harsh.
“Guys will say they want to win,” he said. “The care factor to me is, ‘Do I care enough to actually do what I’m supposed to do, and just do it consistently?’ And that’s really what the championship habits are and that’s what we don’t have right now. … Too often, we have guys that don’t want to make that choice. And it’s pretty consistent who those guys are.”
“I’m not doing another 53 games like this,” he added, threatening an “uncomfortable” Saturday meeting and practice.
That Saturday session was something less than intimidating, as it turned out. Maybe it should have been, because Doncic’s comments Tuesday night were telling.
“We were playing good basketball for three quarters, physical basketball,” he said. “Then we just kind of let go of the rope.”
Was it because of the Pistons’ physical, they-can’t-call-everything defensive style? Or the way the game was officiated? Or just general frustration as Detroit imposed its will?
The reason doesn’t matter. The proof is on the game video, in the 49-27 margin in Detroit’s favor over the last 17:31 of the game, and the Pistons’ 30 points off of 21 Laker turnovers (including 10 on six giveaways in the fourth quarter alone).
Again, this is not the rotation that had originally been envisioned.
“We haven’t had a full team all year,” LeBron James said. “I don’t know, maybe one game we had a full roster, maybe even not. We got some very important guys out right now and obviously I started the year being out. Having our All-Star two guard [Reaves] out. Rui’s out. Gabe’s been out for a minute. Jaxson [Hayes] just came back.
“It’s been a lot of in and out, so that’s very hard to kind of get a rhythm, chemistry on the floor with guys that you know you’re gonna play with every night.”
Sure, it’s hard for a team to forge a coherent identity with key pieces missing. But the NBA schedule waits for no one. And the Lakers’ two stars are indeed present these days. That’s supposed to help, isn’t it?
“Building an identity is difficult, I think,” Redick said. “If you think about our team last year, this team is different. Our identity will eventually be different, but we didn’t get that identity until late January, it felt like, and then we had to shift again. So I don’t think it’s unnatural.
“I remember a meeting I had with [Hall of Fame coach] Phil [Jackson] last year, pretty early in the season,” Redick added. “He said, ‘I always felt like I knew who my team was by Thanksgiving.’ I think that’s hard to figure out with this team right now.”
For his sake, and that of Laker fans, let’s hope Redick – and his boss, Rob Pelinka – can figure it out by Groundhog Day, or Valentine’s Day, or at worst St. Patrick’s Day.
If not? This team could be in trouble.
jalexander@scng.com