The Los Angeles Lakers suffered a tough 123-113 loss to the Phoenix Suns on Sunday, and LeBron James got real about the struggles on the defensive glass during the loss, saying that the guards need to help out Anthony Davis so that the team can get enough rebounds after forcing stops.
“They spread your defense out a lot so you’re out on the perimeter a lot, you’re contesting a lot of threes,” LeBron James said, via Daniel Starkand of Lakers Nation. “We got to do a better job as the guards and forwards of coming back and trying to crash to help AD. There’s a lot of long rebounds, a lot of rebounds went over AD’s head and Nurk was able to push him up underneath the rim and get the majority of his offensive rebounds. Royce O’Neal had a couple crashing in from the corners, I don’t think we talked about that enough before the game and had a point of emphasis of him crashing. So we’ll do a better of that going forward. But we’ve been better with that as of late, today it hurt us. But we’ve been better.”
The Lakers dropped to 31-28 overall with the loss to the Suns. As a result, the Lakers are tied for 10th in the Western Conference with the Golden State Warriors. They are four games ahead of the Utah Jazz for the last Play-In Tournament spot.
Up next for the Lakers is a game against the Los Angeles Clippers on Wednesday, as they try to chase down teams in the Western Conference standings.