LeBron James: Lakers ‘not where we want to be to compete’ with NBA elite

LeBron James said the Los Angeles Lakers need to get healthier to compete with ‘top teams’ like the Boston Celtics.

In his pregame remarks, Darvin Ham said the Los Angeles Lakers’ Christmas showdown with the NBA’s best team (by record), the Boston Celtics, would offer a “good barometer” for his sputtering squad.

“We get a chance to see where we are,” Ham also noted over the weekend. “We’ve had a tough past 30 days, but we get a chance to get home, spend a day at home with our families on Christmas Eve, wake up, open up some presents and get down to the Crypto and get ready to get busy.”

Ham was right about the opportunity to gauge the state of his ballclub. Unfortunately, the result proved just how little they’ve progressed.

A few minutes after the buzzer sounded on a 126-115 Celtics win, the Lakers — who were considerably outplayed in a rare December home game — couldn’t help but acknowledge the current gap between them and a true-blue contender.

“I don’t think we’re where we want to be to compete against the top teams,” admitted LeBron James, who shot 5-for-14 from the field and banged his knee in a collision with Jaylen Brown in the second quarter (“It’s definitely sore“).

The Lakers entered Monday’s marquee matchup as losers of six of eight games. However, they were coming off two spirited efforts, on the road, against a pair of top-two seeds. On Thursday, they lost a hard-fought battle to the Minnesota Timberwolves without LeBron on the second leg of a back-to-back. On Saturday, LeBron and Anthony Davis stepped up in a “desperate”, “must-win” clash with the potent Oklahoma City Thunder.

Boston is a different beast. The Celtics rang up 144 points on the Sacramento Kings on Thursday and 145 on the Los Angeles Clippers — without Kristaps Porzingis — on Saturday (they’d been in California longer than the Lakers). Their starting lineup of Brown/Porzingis/Jayson Tatum/Jrue Holiday/Derrick White has been the league’s most dominant high-frequency unit (+19.6 net rating pre-Christmas).

The Lakers deployed their goofy, defensive-minded starting lineup, which debuted to inverse impact in OKC. Predictably, the Celtics’ seasoned starters jumped out to a 12-0 lead and seized momentum. Los Angeles hung around thanks to a monster performance from AD — 40 points, 13 rebounds, 15-for-26 shooting — and a 40.6% showing from deep. But, they were a level below Boston, especially with LeBron off his game.

“We came back a little bit lethargic, just coming off a long trip, and then the whole Christmas circumstances of the holiday or whatever, took us a little bit of time to get going,” theorized Ham.

With 51 games to go and the trade deadline over a month away, the Lakers are still searching. They’re 10-15 outside of the In-Season Tournament. They’ve yet to beat an upper-echelon contender at full strength. Rotations are as unsettled as ever. The new starting group, by the way, has been ineffective.

The Lakers continue to preach patience. For now, they’re pinning their shortcomings on availability — or lack thereof.

“I think the league’s best teams right now, so far: Minnesota — they’re pretty much healthy,” pointed out LeBron. “OKC — pretty much healthy besides [Josh Giddey]. And Boston seems like they’re fully healthy. I don’t think we’re healthy right now.

“We’re still trying to figure our situation out, in terms of how we want to attack each game.”

“Their lineup has been pretty, pretty much intact the entire year,” Ham said about Boston. “With us, just trying to mix and match. Some guys are more offensive dominant, some guys are more defensive dominant, but they’re trying to find that balance within the lineup. I think the circumstances of our injuries have definitely affected any type of cohesion.”

One glaring issue is the increasingly negative presence of D’Angelo Russell, recently demoted to the bench. In 18 minutes, he scored eight points and dished six assists while aloofly moseying around the court. Like many of his teammates, Russell was unfocused and sluggish defensively, resulting in some critical weak-side open looks for Boston in the second half.

In general, the Lakers lacked discipline. They fouled too much. They “fell asleep” in transition, per Ham. The Celtics had 19 points off turnovers compared to the Lakers’ three.

“We can’t get bored with the details,” Ham emphasized. “Sprinting back each and every time, no matter how difficult it may be. Allow the chance to have the offense in front of you and not be scattered or have them behind you. And not fouling, getting the defensive rebound, not turning the ball over and playing with force offensively.”

“When you don’t have much room for error, you have to be detail-oriented. You have to understand each possession. And when you’re able to execute that to as close to perfection, then you’re going to give yourself a better chance to be successful. So when we play defense for 24 seconds or whatever and we give up an offensive rebound or second-chance points, or we don’t get back in transition and we give them early transition points — whoever it is, don’t matter if it’s the Celtics or any other team — that’s not a good recipe for us.”

To be fair, the situation is nowhere near as dire as in February 2021, when LeBron — just before the deadline — flat-out stated that the Lakers had no chance of reaching contender status in the aftermath of a decisive defeat to the Milwaukee Bucks. The 2023-24 Lakers are confident in their long-term ceiling.

“I think we can beat any team that steps on the floor,” said Austin Reaves. “We just gotta tighten things up.”

Pressed for specification, Reaves responded, “Everything. You can always get better at everything … Literally offense, defense, energy.”

Time isn’t running out, but the clock is ticking. A lot of work is left to be done. Like … all of it?