With his Lakers fresh off their seventh consecutive win, LeBron James looked relaxed as he donned a headset for his postgame interview. It wasn’t long before his former teammate Richard Jefferson had him in stitches, prodding him with good-natured barbs.
But James tried to stifle the laughter as Jefferson brought up the 20-point deficit the Lakers found themselves in against Memphis in the first quarter, when they trailed 22-2.
“We gotta figure that out, in all seriousness,” James said. “Getting down 20 points on our home floor … is not good ingredients for a championship team.”
It might be the least imposing seven-game winning streak this year in the NBA – the Lakers haven’t been ringing up blowouts as much as surviving challengers, or in the case of Friday night’s tilt with the Grizzlies, letting them get a sizeable head start. The Lakers have trailed after the last four first quarters, and they made dubious history Friday by becoming the third team in the past 20 seasons to make consecutive comebacks after trailing by 20 points.
Even during the seven-game win streak, the Lakers have been outscored by 34 points in the first quarter. Against Memphis, there were fewer excuses than ever.
The Lakers were home, to start. After decrying the lack of practice time this season, the Lakers had an opportunity to get on court for practice the day before. Health? They finally had it, starting Anthony Davis and playing Alex Caruso – who were not their prime selves, but plenty effective. And the Grizzlies were without eight players themselves, including Jaren Jackson, Brandon Clarke, De’Anthony Melton and Desmond Bane.
So what gives? Why do the Lakers go down by 20 points in the first quarter? There hasn’t been a singular explanation to arise, which has made some of the starts to recent games vexing even to the players themselves. Kyle Kuzma acknowledged that he had felt “frustration” with the first-quarter deficits.
“We have a cool, calmed and collected group of guys here and the majority of us have kind of been through the fire in the playoffs, winning that championship so we know how to walk people down,” he said. “Obviously that’s a great trait that we have, but I think recently we’ve kind of been walking people down too much instead of putting our foot on people’s throat.”
There were certain extenuating circumstances several people pointed to. Davis, who scored 35 points, said teammates were working to get him early looks and help him find rhythm. Frank Vogel said the offense didn’t counter well to when Memphis pressured the ball. Certainly the Grizzlies’ early shooting was not sustainable: They were 13 for their first 22 shots.
But there’s been definitive trends during the win streak that have felt concerning, especially in the last four: The Lakers have posted at least six turnovers in three of their four last first quarters. They’ve also shot under 45% in the last three games in the first quarter, and against Memphis, they took only one shot at the rim in the first five minutes of the game (the Grizzlies had already taken nine shots in the paint).
There’s a certain assertiveness that is lacking at the starting point of games. While Davis pointed out that opponents like Oklahoma City and Memphis get especially excited to play the Lakers, Marc Gasol observed that the Lakers bear some culpability as well.
“We tend to come out and feel the game out a little bit, see how they’re playing,” he said. “We kind of sometimes predetermine a little bit how we want to play early on. And then the game, obviously we have a lot of guys who have a very high IQ and we’re able to adapt to the challenges that they propose.”
For some members of the Lakers, the adaptation part seems to be the actually exciting portion of the game. Several players have acknowledged that between playing with no fans and coming off the exhilaration of a championship run with high-stakes game-by-game adjustments, the regular season is lacking much juice for a team with as much talent as they have. The Lakers can dominate and win, but they can coast and win, too.
There’s a departure here from the culture the Lakers established last season, when they were the wire-to-wire leaders in the Western Conference and smashed opponents in games even when they didn’t have James or Davis available. The first quarter was also the Lakers’ best last season: They had a plus-8.5 net rating in the regular season during the first quarter, which improved to a plus-14.2 in the playoffs.
But getting behind early also seems to engage some of the Lakers’ best players, including James who started Friday’s game as ugly as anyone. Behind by double digits in the third quarter, James said he was sparked to play harder.
“When you get down like we’ve been getting down early, you can’t play many mistake possessions throughout the course of the game in order to get back into the game,” he said. “It raises our attentive level back up. We also know we’ve got to be – I don’t want to say perfect because you’re never going to be perfect – but you’ve got to be as close to perfect as possible to get back into the game.”
It’s a habit the Lakers are going to have to break against the competition they have coming up: They’ll face Denver on Sunday, an opponent that they had to come back against already during this win streak. That will be swiftly followed by home dates against Brooklyn and Miami, then Utah, Portland and Golden State before the month is out. Getting behind by 20 won’t cut it against those teams.
And the Lakers know it, too.
“We are going to put ourselves in a hole one of these days,” Vogel said, “and not be able to come back.”
James, Kuzma get flop warnings
The league officially warned James and Kuzma after both players flopped during Friday night’s game in plays involving Dillon Brooks.
James fell back in a first-half play when a group of players were attempting to corral a rebound, resulting in a foul call against the Grizzlies. Kuzma took contact against a driving Brooks in the second half, but the play didn’t result in a foul call.
The warning is the first step in the NBA’s anti-flopping policy. Subsequent infractions draw escalating fines.
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