After winning two games in a row, the Lakers dropped a game at home against the Jazz (130-116). The hosts were unable to erase a 13-point lead that the visitors built in the first half. In addition, Utah won the fourth quarter by 9 points (30-21).
Lakers head coach Darvin Ham was disappointed with what he saw from his team on the defensive. “We took a huge step backwards tonight,” he said after the game.
“Giving up 75 points in the first half, giving them at least three 30+ point quarters. We can’t play like that. We were good during different small stretches, but overall picture that was painted by us defensively sucks.
“We’ll address it through film, practice, we’ll get together tomorrow and dig deep and do a deep dive on why the things were the way they were tonight.
“That’s got to be in your DNA. It’s process to get it to be that way when you want to defend at a high level night in and night out. It’s not comfortable, but it’s fun, it has to be fun, you have to enjoy getting stops, holding to one possession, rebounding the ball, getting hits whether you retrieve the ball or not.
“Just the little things of the game. Keeping the ball in front of you, getting down in a stance, spreading back in transition. We have unfortunately a long laundry list of things that we are going to show them tomorrow. It’s the first game where I felt we weren’t there defensively.”
The Lakers dropped to 2-6 while the Jazz improved to 7-3.
