The Los Angeles Lakers saw their two-game winning streak snapped in blowout fashion on Tuesday night with a 108-87 loss to the Portland Trailblazers at Staples Center.
LA went into the game riding the momentum of back-to-back wins over the Miami Heat and Orlando Magic last weekend, but hit a roadblock in a Blazers team that also beat them in Portland less than a week ago. Fish joined the Spectrum Sportsnet crew to break down the matchup before and after the game, then offered some additional insight on social media in a new feature called #ThreeFromFish.
In this particular instance, Fish supplied three things he noticed the Lakers weren’t able to do in the loss. The first related to LA’s lack of leadership.
Though LA led by two at halftime, once the game started to spiral on them, none of the youthful Lakers players stepped up to stop the bleeding and they instead lost control. Most of that happened during Derek’s second key moment, Los Angeles’ poor third quarter. After a strong first half, the Lakers came out flat from the break and scored just 12 points in the frame while the Blazers seized control.
Finally, Fish pointed to LA’s propensity to let their struggles on offense snowball into poor defense. This was evident in the final frame as the Lakers allowed Portland to pile on 30 points in the fourth to close out the win.