PHOENIX — The Lakers, once again, told on themselves.
Which is part of the reason why there was so much frustration surrounding their 113-110 road loss to the Suns on Thursday night.
Because if the Lakers extrapolated the effort, energy, physicality and grit they played with in the final 5 ½ minutes against the Suns across the periods of the game they were unfocused, lethargic and undisciplined, they likely wouldn’t have left Mortgage Matchup Center with their third straight loss.
They wouldn’t have needed Luka Doncic’s absurd late shot-making and 41-point performance to keep up with the Suns, who were without their two best players in Devin Booker and Dillon Brooks.
The game wouldn’t have been decided on Royce O’Neale’s 3-pointer with just under a second left. Or the corner 3-point attempt from Austin Reaves, who was wide open after a well-diagrammed after-timeout play, that was just a tad too far to the right.
“Control the controllables,” said Reaves on how the Lakers (34-24) can get out of their slump. “(There were) a handful of plays I feel like if we are better, it can swing a game. Every possession matters. It sounds like a cliché because there are so many of them, but it can swing the game in either direction throughout the game. One little play, one little mistake can ignite a crowd, ignite a team, whatever it may be.”
The Lakers, who’ve lost five of their last seven games, benefited when they took control of the controllables.
Like at the 5:42 mark of the fourth quarter, with the Lakers trailing 101-89, when the 6-foot-5 Reaves boxed out 6-7 Ryan Dunn after a Jalen Green missed 3, helping 6-3 Marcus Smart leap over Dunn to grab a contested defensive rebound.
Or, with the Lakers trailing 101-92, when Smart made a perfectly timed low man rotation and got vertical at the rim to stop Dunn from dunking and prevent the Suns from going up by double digits.
Or when Jake LaRavia took a bump on a Collin Gillespie drive and forced a turnover from behind (Smart was credited with the steal) when the Lakers were down 103-98.
Each of those defensive plays directly led to the Lakers scoring on the other end, helping them turn a 12-point deficit into a tied game at 108 with one minute left.
The Lakers weren’t devoid of mistakes during the 19-7 run they went on over the 5 ½-minute stretch: overhelping, creating easier scoring opportunities for Suns players by jumping on defense when they didn’t need to or botched switches stood out.
But they were playing with a physicality and urgency they weren’t consistent with earlier.
“That’s what sucks: We have shown time after time that we can do it; we just got to put it together for 48 minutes,” Smart said. “And that’s something we’re still working on. I know it’s late in the season, and we should probably already (have it figured out). But everybody’s trying to figure it out.”
It was evident they didn’t have it figured out — playing with focused urgency — when Dunn beat all five Lakers down the court for a dunk in transition to put the Suns up 96-86 midway through the fourth.
Or when Jarred Vanderbilt turned the ball over on an inbounds pass midway through the second, helping the Suns go on a 7-0 run.
Or the several times Grayson Allen and Gillespie, who combined to shoot 12 of 27 on 3s, sprung free for open looks beyond the arc.
Yes, the Suns’ 44% shooting from beyond the arc (22 of 50) included tough makes, but the Lakers played a role in their own misfortunes by letting Phoenix get as many clean looks as it did.
“Our losses are louder than other teams because we’re the Lakers,” coach JJ Redick said, “and because of the way we lose.”
Their losses are also loud because within those defeats, similar issues occur.
How many times have players mentioned the coaching staff having a great game plan before acknowledging they didn’t do their jobs by executing it?
How many times has a lack of physicality been mentioned? And what will it take for the Lakers to be more consistent in that area?
“I don’t know,” Doncic said. “We just got to do it more.”
The Lakers were winning earlier in the season despite some of their bad habits and clear weaknesses.
While they’ve made strides in some areas despite their injuries and player-availability carousel that continued from the start of the season through mid-February, many of those habits are still present.
And they’re paying for them with a 19-20 record since Dec. 1.
“Early on in the season, it was working; now it’s not,” Smart said. “Guys got to adjust and find a new way to win it. We have told on ourselves, and that’s, I think, the frustrating part, not just for us, I think to our coaches, I think to our fans, (too). We have told ourselves, and we can’t keep doing that.”
Because if they do, the Lakers’ 2025-26 season will end a lot sooner than they want it to.
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: nypost.com
