The Lakers need to hope this is just a trend and not a fatal flaw.
After Houston became the latest team to pounce on the Lakers in the first quarter, they have been outscored by 74 points in the opening 12 minutes, the most by any team in NBA history for the first eight games of a season, per ESPN Stats and Info. That’s a wild number even for a team that’s trailed by 10 or more in the opening quarter six times already.
If that’s not bleak enough, no Laker has a positive first-quarter plus/minus. LeBron James is minus-43. Austin Reaves is minus-44. D’Angelo Russell is minus-49 and Anthony Davis minus-52.
“The game is always, in my opinion, won by doing the little things, the details, you know?” coach Darvin Ham said Wednesday. “Sprinting back in transition defense — that’s why we’ve been harping on that all year and will continue to harp on that. Being active. Helping your teammates out. Being great on the ball. And then getting hits and trying to come up with long, difficult rebounds and 50-50 balls. Just that.
“I thought in that first quarter tonight, in particular, and it’s been this way, the second-chance points that we give teams and the second and third opportunities, that’s been a little bit of an Achilles’ heel for us. That definitely has to get corrected.”
The Lakers have eased into games too often on both sides of the ball (more on that later), and the holes they’ve needed to climb out of virtually every night have made for a stressful start.
“They came out and played harder than us,” Russell said. “They made more shots. They got more shots. That was the result.”