Luka Doncic singles out Lakers’ abnormal situation in brutal Celtics loss

LOS ANGELES – After a first quarter that saw the Los Angeles Lakers and Boston Celtics tied at 28, the Lakers could not keep pace with their historic rival, getting outscored 83-61 the rest of the game en route to a 111-89 loss. For a Lakers team that has been explosive offensively, the 89 points was the second-lowest total they’ve had this season, as per Law Murray of The Athletic, and something that Luka Doncic admitted was not normal.

“I think they were playing physical. They were playing great defense,” Doncic said during his postgame press conference. “We need better offense. We scored 89 points. That’s not like us so we got to be better.”

Coming into the game against the Celtics, the Lakers were 12th in the NBA in points per game at 116.2. They were 10th in offensive rating at 117.6. On the flip side, the Celtics came in second in the league in opponents points per game at 108.4, and eighth in defensive rating at 113.5.

The Celtics swarming defense was certainly on display, especially their use of a deep drop and strong perimeter ball pressure.

“You’ve just got to match the physicality. . .especially on the defensive end,” Doncic said. “You got to match the physicality.”

Doncic finished the game with 25 points in 33 minutes while shooting 9-of-22 (40.9 percent) from the field and 4-of-7 (57.1 percent) from the 3-point line. He also added five rebounds, three assists and one steal.

The Lakers offensive struggles were also highlighted by head coach JJ Redick, who felt like the team generally played good enough defense to win the game. It was a reverse from the team’s norm this season in which they’ve usually put up a lot of points, but struggled to contain opposing offenses.

“We did a good job limiting their fast break points, did a good job limiting their points in the paint. . .we did enough defensively,” Redick said. “We were just awful offensively tonight.”

For Redick, one of the key areas that the Lakers struggled with offensively was getting shots at the rim and putting more pressure on the Celtics’ defense.

“There were opportunities, I think, to put more pressure on the rim, particularly in the first half,” Redick said. “We took 11 non-paint twos. We were 13-of-29 on paint twos, non-rim paint twos. That’s not normally what we shoot. And then we got some good looks from three, we didn’t knock them down. You got to make shots in this league.”

“I think a lot of times when teams are on that deeper drop versus all our guys that play pick and roll, it kind of puts you a little bit in a bind of not having the obvious choice to pass,” Redick continued. “We just got to do a better job of just finding guys and moving the ball.”

Prior to the game, the Lakers honored legendary coach Pat Riley, who had his battles against the Celtics in his days, with a statue outside the team’s arena.

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