NBA 12/26 Recap: Los Angeles Lakers @ Sacramento Kings

L.A. Lakers at Sacramento							Advanced Stats		4 Factors
Teams	1	2	3	4	T		PACE	Offense	EFG%	TOR	ORR	FTR
LAL	20	20	24	27	91		88.20	103.76	0.43	10.25	34.78	18.18
SAC	21	28	29	22	100			112.73	0.53	11.72	25.64	28.00

Lakers offense Shot Locs:

At Rim			3-9 Feet			10-15 Feet			16-23 Feet			Threes
FGM	FGA	eFG%	FGM	FGA	eFG%	FGM	FGA	eFG%	FGM	FGA	eFG%	FGM	FGA	eFG%
17	23	74.0%	6	15	40.0%	2	7	28.6%	11	27	40.8%	1	16	9.4%

Sacramento offense Shot Locs:

At Rim			3-9 Feet			10-15 Feet			16-23 Feet			Threes
FGM	FGA	eFG%	FGM	FGA	eFG%	FGM	FGA	eFG%	FGM	FGA	eFG%	FGM	FGA	eFG%
10	17	58.90%	4	12	33.40%	2	9	22.30%	10	19	52.70%	9	18	75%

Yesterday the Lakers lost in Sacramento by 91-100 and more worrying than the fact that they are now 0-2 is the fact that they lost this game at Sacramento in a very similar way to their losses against Dallas in last year's postseason. Basically, the Kings were like the Mavericks from last season and head coach Mike Brown recognized that:

"We were trying to get stops," Brown said. "We were trying to limit the amounts of straight-line drives that they were able to do. We were able to do that for a while, and that got us back into the game."

"Teams are going to get 3-point shots against us if we let them drive past us during the game and kick it out"

So, what in the heck happened?

Well, what happened is that the slow footed perimeter defense of the Lakers was only again highly exposed. "We allowed them to get past us. When we would collapse on defense, they would kick the ball out to the open man for the 3", Mike Brown said. The truth is that Sacramento finished the game with 10-19 FG from the 16-23 feet area and 9-18 from behind the arc. Marcus Thornton and Tyreke Evans were the stars of the game and combined for 47 points.

Besides their problems in the perimeter defense, the Lakers were also killed in transition. I remember watching that Sacramento had already scored 17 fast break points in the middle of the 2nd quarter and eventually coach Mike Brown was able to stop that, as the Kings scored only two more fast break points in the rest of the game.

Offensively, the Lakers were a team that couldn't take advantage of the big edge that they would naturally have over the Kings near the basket. On my team preview of the Kings for this season, I noted that Sacramento was the worst team last year in defending the rim and yesterday, the Lakers went 17-23 FG at the rim - 74%! Besides this, the Lakers also shot 6-15 FG from the 3-9 feet area - 40%! The problem of the Lakers was their lack of volume inside the post. Mike Brown's system is yet to find a good offensive balance and last night the Lakers were a perimeter team who shot 1-16 from the 3pts line! 1-16!!! The absence of Bynum is a factor, but still the Lakers completely "forgot" they had Pau Gasol on the court during the 1st half, as he only had one single FGM! In fact, when the Lakers had a late rally in the 4th quarter, Gasol was decisive not only because of the points he scored, but also for the good decisions he took when he had the ball on his hands. But it was just too little too late.

The Lakers are now 0-2, but more important than that, they don't seem to have an identity. The ghost of Phil Jackson must quickly disappear, as Mike Brown is yet to put his team playing with any kind of identity. Maybe Andrew Bynum will help them with that.