The Lakers are struggling to win games, with much for the blame coming on the defensive end.

Coach Nick of BBall Breakdown provides video showing where the Lakers are falling apart, using the team’s 100-94 loss to the Cleveland Cavaliers on Tuesday as an example.


According to the breakdown, the Lakers are often choosing to switch liberally on defense, allowing teams to find exploitable mismatches.

In a key moment late in the game, Jordan Hill didn’t understand a direction to intentionally foul Tristan Thompson. In the confusion, while trying to signal to Hill, Kobe Bryant doesn’t rotate on defense and the Cavaliers get an easy layup.

The Lakers seem to make regular mistakes, be it in transition, rotation or even just basic man-to-man coverage. It will be interesting to see how much the defense improves once Pau Gasol (knees) and Steve Nash (leg) return from injury.


Nash isn’t known as much of a defender but the added talent with Gasol over 48 minutes should certainly help. Regardless, the Lakers have a lot of work to do to improve. At 9-13, the margin for error is already quite thin.

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Email Eric Pincus at eric.pincus@gmail.com and follow him on Twitter @EricPincus.