Lakers defensive issues start at the top, lead to 117-110 Jazz win

The Utah Jazz are not the most talented team in the Western Conference, but they work hard. Every possession, every game.

That is far more than the Lakers, who showed no passion or consistent effort on the defensive end. Starting with their stars and filtering down to everyone.

The result of that sad effort was a 117-110 rare Jazz road win that sinks the Lakers to 9-12 on the season, having lost four of their last five.

Utah scored at a 133.1 points per 100 possession pace in this game — for perspective, the Thunder have the best offense in the NBA this season at 111.3 The Jazz shot 54.2 percent for the game and seemed to consistently get the shot they wanted, either in transition or the half court. Combined the Jazz big men — Al Jefferson, Paul Millsap and Enes Kanter — combined for 52 points on 21-of-37 shooting (56.8 percent).

The defensive issues with the Lakers start at the top, and it’s not just Steve Nash and Pau Gasol still being out. Howard couldn’t stop the Jazz big men and he is becoming more and more frustrated — rightfully — when nobody helps the helper. When the Lakers guards get beat and their man starts to drive Howard steps out to cut off the lane, but nobody rotates to get his man and suddenly it’s easy buckets for opposing bigs.

Kobe Bryant doesn’t get off cleanly here — more than once he didn’t get back on defense really at all after staying to glare and gesture to referees when he didn’t get a call on a drive on the offensive end.

Utah shot 55 percent in the first half but the score was close until midway through the second quarter when the Jazz went on 11-0 run. That separated the teams and gave Utah a 60-51 halftime lead. There were defensive lapses by the Lakers but credit the Jazz who got hustle plays from DeMarre Carroll. The Lakers got hustle from Jordan Hill (17 points and 6 offensive rebounds for the game) but not much else.

Adding insult to injury, the deliberate Jazz had 14 fast break points in the first half, which is tied to the Lakers nine turnovers in the first half.

Lakers came out on a run on the second half and this was back to being a close game immediately. They were doing it with threes — Los Angeles was 15-of-28 from three. The Lakers got 40.9 percent of their points from three. Which is a good sign for a team that has been worried about outside shooting.

All night long Lakers offense was fine, led by Kobe Bryant’s 34 on 9-of-24 shooting.

But that’s moot if you don’t get stops.

The Lakers made it interesting with a late push, actually defending with energy and with a Jordan Hill fastbreak dunk and some Kobe free throws we had a six-point game. But in the end, Utah just keep putting up points and the Lakers clock management at the end was a mess. Mo Williams finished with 22 for Utah, Gordon Hayward had 14 off the bench.

Utah is 12-10 and continues to be a solid team in the West. There are a lot of questions about this team’s moves with a lot of late year contracts as they head into the trading deadline, but they are not playing for tomorrow. They are grinding and working for today.

It’s not too early for the Lakers to get healthy and find a groove, there are more than four months of regular season left. We are just a quarter of the way into the season. But the hole the Lakers have dug themselves will hurt with their playoff seeding and very possible first round series on the road (unless you think they can catch the Thunder, Spurs, Grizzlies or Clippers).