Lakers at Nuggets (12/26/12)

After a great win yesterday, the Lakers gave a pretty lackluster follow up tonight.  Energy seemed to be lacking all night.  The Lakers struggled to keep the Nuggets off of the offensive glass, and as a result found themselves on the losing end of a 114-126 game.  They were shooting well from the field so they were in the game all night up until the final 3 or 4 minutes of the night.  But their defense just couldn't hold the line. 

With about 5 minutes to go in the 3rd, and the Lakers down 6, Dwight Howard was called for a flagrant 2 foul and ejected from the game.  After that point the Nuggets went to the basket at will. The Lakers tried to mount a comeback, but MWP missed a layup that would have cut the deficit to 5 with 3 minutes to go.  The Nuggets responded by hitting a 3 followed by a layup.  And that was all she wrote.  The Lakers looked like they had no legs following a tough game yesterday. That is understandable, but their defensive communication also looked off.  Their rotations were frequently wrong and slow.  They just weren't on the same page.  Pau and Nash both had good first halves, but made much less impact in the second half.  Dwight wasn't available for almost the entire 2nd half.   Kobe was the only one who put together a complete game, and even he had several defensive lapses that were costly.

Notables:

The Good:
- Efficient night offensively for the Bean.  He scored 40 and is really torching teams.  There were some nice feeds from Nash to Kobe where he doesn't even have to work hard to score.
- Good first half from Pau.  He made two 3s and facilitated some
- Nash shot 6/8

The Bad:
-Waaaaayyy too many offensive rebounds given up to a Nuggets team that lives and dies by that.  The Lakers have to do a better job of team rebounding against a team like that.  Boxing out is key.
- Poor defensive communication
- Dwight getting ejected
- The backup guards, with the exception of Meeks, rarely penetrate with the intention of scoring.  Causes the ball to move east and west instead of north and south.

It was a poor effort overall, but especially defensively in the second half.  Gave up 39 points in the 3rd, which is just too much.