LOS ANGELES — JJ Redick can usually tell early when the Los Angeles Lakers don’t have it defensively. And recently, he can tell very early.
On Christmas, Redick was forced to call the first timeout of the game with 6:42 left in the opening quarter. By that point, all five Houston Rockets starters (Tari Eason, Amen Thompson, Jabari Smith Jr., Kevin Durant and Alperen Şengün) had made a field goal. Houston was getting second-chance points, 3-pointers, fast breaks and pull-up jump shots. And the Lakers’ defense was getting lit up like a Christmas tree.
On Thursday, for the seventh time this season, Redick rolled out a starting lineup featuring guards Luka Dončić and Austin Reaves, forwards LeBron James and Rui Hachimura and center Deandre Ayton. That group had won four of the previous six games it had started together, but the Lakers were not necessarily winning because of that lineup. In 76 minutes entering Christmas, the quintet had been outscored by 15 points, allowing 120.7 points per 100 possessions. That would rank worse than every NBA defense except the Utah Jazz and Washington Wizards.
One particularly egregious example of absent-minded defense came when Lakers assistant coaches tried to warn Reaves about a back-cutting Eason, only for Eason to get a precise pass from Şengün in between Reaves and Dončić for an easy dunk.
Redick’s initial timeout did not include substitutions. Nor did it help the defense. Houston’s after-timeout play saw Durant clear out and allow Thompson to receive a dribble handoff from Şengün. Hachimura point-switched with Ayton, but Ayton was no match for Thompson getting downhill.
On the next Rockets possession, Durant used a Şengün screen that Reaves tried to fight over with Ayton playing up at the level. Durant got the ball to a rolling Şengün for a four-on-three. James came off Thompson to help from the weak side and defend Şengün. As that was happening, Dončić stayed on the strong side while Thompson cut and received an alley-oop from Şengün.
Sixty-six seconds after his first timeout, Redick needed another. As the Lakers coach seethed at his team, Dončić was in the distance, raising his right hand as if to take accountability for being out of position. The Lakers trailed 22-10 and had allowed the Rockets to score on 10 of their first 14 possessions, including eight straight. And after the 119-96 loss, Redick tore into his team.
“The two words of the day were effort and execution,” Redick said after a third straight loss dropped the Lakers to 19-10. “I feel like when we’ve done both of those things at a high level, we’ve been a good basketball team. When we haven’t, we’re a terrible basketball team, and tonight we were a terrible basketball team. That started legitimately right away.”
Overall, the Lakers were outscored 26-12 in the eight minutes that their starting lineup was on the floor against the Rockets. That’s a pace of 156 points in 48 minutes. The Lakers’ defense can’t force teams to miss shots; no team allows a higher percentage of 3s made (38.4 percent), and Los Angeles ranks 18th in 3-point attempts allowed per game. Only the Charlotte Hornets, New Orleans Pelicans, Jazz, and Sacramento Kings permit a higher overall field goal percentage than the Lakers (48.6 percent).
Against the Rockets, inducing missed shots was enough of a challenge. The Rockets made 53.3 percent from the field. But the Lakers, usually a decent defensive rebounding team, also couldn’t do anything about Houston’s world-class offensive rebounding.
That showed on one particular possession with Dončić out of the game and the Lakers utilizing one of their theoretically better defensive groups, with James and Ayton supported by reserves Marcus Smart and Jarred Vanderbilt. They survived Smart receiving no help from Vanderbilt on a Reed Sheppard ball-screen reject drive and a double by Smart and James on a Smith ghost screen that unlocked an open Sheppard 3. But Ayton couldn’t handle the defensive rebound, allowing Rockets backup center Steven Adams to score.
L.A.’s effort on the glass was quite poor; Şengün had as many rebounds (12) as the entire Lakers starting lineup. The effort on the interior was terrible, as the 68 points the Rockets scored in the paint were a season-high for a Lakers opponent.
And one game after allowing the Phoenix Suns to score on each of their first 12 possessions of the second half, the Lakers allowed the Rockets to score on each of their first five possessions after halftime. This was without Reaves, who did not return in the second half due to what has become a recurring left calf issue. Smart replaced Reaves, but the issues with execution and effort remained. This was the possession after Redick’s first third-quarter timeout. The Lakers wound up trailing by double digits for the entire second half.
“It’s a matter of making the choice,” Redick said. “And too often, we have guys that don’t wanna make that choice. And it’s pretty consistent who those guys are.”
This whole team could be called out. It’s 4-6 in December after an 11-2 November. But things always start with the best players. And the Lakers have a problem there if the question is effort and execution.
The trio of Dončić, James, and Reaves is not good defensively. There’s enough of a sample size to make that basic observation. In 423 minutes last regular season, the Lakers allowed 117.7 points per 100 possessions with that star threesome on the floor. In 140 minutes against the Minnesota Timberwolves in a playoff series that saw the Lakers only win one game, they allowed 117.2 points per 100 possessions with Dončić, James and Reaves on the floor. And in 140 minutes this regular season, the Lakers allow 118.7 points per 100 possessions with Dončić, James and Reaves on the floor.
Those three probably won’t be playing together again for a little while. Reaves missed 13 days with a calf strain before returning off the bench Tuesday in Phoenix. He could be staring at an even longer absence this time around. Coincidentally, it was on Christmas last year when Dončić injured his calf and wound up being out for 47 days. Of course, his first game back was his Lakers debut after the Dallas Mavericks traded him.
“I know what it is to go through a calf injury,” Dončić said. “It’s not fun at all. We’ll just be there to support him. Take your time. Calves are dangerous, so take your time.”
That leaves Dončić and James to hold things down for the Lakers. And those two can’t defend together. The Lakers have allowed a blistering 124.0 points per 100 possessions in the 261 minutes those two have shared the floor this season. Neither can defend in the back court or protect the rim at this stage of their careers. Add Ayton (a center who isn’t the most versatile defender) and Hachimura (a forward who doesn’t make energy plays and who rebounds like a guard), and you have a quartet that allows 128.2 points per 100 possessions in 114 minutes together.
The Lakers were outscored by 25 points in Dončić’s minutes on Christmas. Dončić’s last act of significance was fouling Durant and then getting official Marat Kogut to call a technical foul on him, his eighth of the season. No player has more technical fouls than Dončić, and teams are going to continue to attack his defense.
“Everybody’s got to give a better effort, starting with me,” Dončić said.
Then there’s James, who declined to address the media after a game in which his team got outscored by 33 points while he was on the floor. Including playoffs, James has played in 1,867 games. Only twice has a James team been outscored by more points in his minutes than on Christmas, both coming in his second stint with the Cleveland Cavaliers: January 2016 against the Golden State Warriors (the Cavs were outscored by 34 points in James’ 33 minutes) and January 2018 at Minnesota (the Cavs outscored by 39 points in James’ 27 minutes). James had a new head coach by the end of the week of that Warriors game, and six of James’ teammates were traded a month after that Minnesota game.
James turns 41 on Tuesday. He shouldn’t be tasked with being the hardest-playing athlete on the floor, and Redick considers him and Smart to be the “quarterbacks” of the defense. But the Lakers allow 121.9 points per 100 possessions with James on the floor in 433 minutes this season. No Laker has a worse defensive efficiency rating in their minutes, and the Lakers have been outscored by 59 points in James’ minutes overall. This is not a new issue either. Last month, in a loss to a short-handed Atlanta Hawks team, Redick said he could tell the Lakers had no energy two minutes into the game.
Respect the hell out of LeBron, unbelievable player obviously. But his effort on defense hasn’t been good enough this year, and some of these offensive rebounding clips from Houston are egregious on his part. pic.twitter.com/c8au8XREoi
— Sam Vecenie (@Sam_Vecenie) December 26, 2025
This roster clearly needs to be recalibrated. Perhaps Vanderbilt needs to start for Hachimura while Smart starts during Reaves’ recovery. The Lakers don’t have Dorian Finney-Smith anymore (he made his season debut Thursday for the Rockets), but perhaps Jake LaRavia should be in the lineup more often. Redick is at his wits’ end trying to reach this group, but there’s only so much he can do with limited one-way players. Reaves is hurt, James is old, and there’s a defensive tax for having Dončić be the best player on your team.
We’ll see if inspiration can change that.
“All five of us on the floor need to be locked in,” Dončić said. “It’s not gonna take one guy or two guys or three guys. It’s going to take all five to be great.”