It’s five straight losses for Lakers after 106-96 defeat to Nuggets

Instead of arriving early to work on his broken jump shot and poor play, Nick Young casually strolled into the Lakers’ locker room 20 minutes late for Tuesday night’s game against the Denver Nuggets.

Young’s tardiness and continued bad play weren’t the only reasons why the Lakers dropped a 106-96 decision at Staples Center.

The Lakers failed to execute down the stretch when the game hung in the balance.

There was the poor defense that allowed Ty Lawson (32 points) to score on a wide-open jumper for a three-point Nuggets lead in the fourth quarter, the airball by Wesley Johnson and a Jeremy Lin turnover when the Lakers trailed by seven points.

“It was the turnovers,” that were most costly down the stretch, Lakers Coach Byron Scott said. “We put them in the bonus early. Pretty much everything they seemed to get over the last three or four minutes was either at the basket or an open jump shot.”

As for Young, he finished with 12 points, but was four for 13 shooting, two for six from three-point range.

Carlos Boozer led the Lakers with 21 points and Wayne Ellington had 18 points.

It was two teams in desperate need of a victory, two teams that both entered the game having lost 13 of 14 games, two teams looking for answers for a season gone bad.

The Lakers still are, having extended their losing streak to five in a row, while the Nuggets broke a five-game losing streak.

For 7:30 games, players are supposed to arrive at the arena at 6 p.m.

Young eased his way into the locker room at 6:20 p.m., seemingly without a care in the world.

A group of reporters gathered around Young, who admitted that it was true what his girlfriend, rapper Iggy Azalea, said about him being afraid of dolphins.

Scott came out of his office and had some strong words for Young.

“That’s a fine,” Scott said to Young as he spoke to the reporters.

“It’s my normal time, 6:15,” Young responded.

Scott looked at Young and said, “No, it’s 6.”

Scott didn’t say how much Young was going to be fined, but he wasn’t happy with his reserve small forward.

Young entered the game in a big-time shooting slump.

He shot 28.6% from the field, including 22.3% from three-point range, in his first three games this month.

He shot 32.2% from the field, including 29.9% from three-point range, in 13 games he played in last month.

Clearly, Young’s game has been subpar, but he still didn’t see the need to arrive in time to work on his struggling game.

He made his first shot in the first quarter against the Nuggets, but then missed his next four.

And in the process of it all, a Lakers team that shot 54.2% in the first quarter went cold.

A 12-point lead they built in the second quarter was cut to 48-45 at the half.

That in turn became a four-point deficit.

Follow Broderick Turner on Twitter @BA_Turner