The Los Angeles Lakers brought in Marcus Smart this offseason with a clear mission: inject some defensive grit into a team that desperately needed it. And true to form, Smart hasn’t disappointed in terms of effort or edge.
He’s brought the same tenacity that made him a Defensive Player of the Year and a fan favorite in Boston. But as much as his presence has helped, it hasn’t been a cure-all for what continues to be one of the NBA’s most puzzling defensive units.
Case in point: the Lakers’ recent loss to the Charlotte Hornets, where they surrendered 135 points. That wasn’t just a bad night-it was a defensive breakdown.
Bigger guards and wings had their way with L.A., exposing the team’s inability to contain size and strength on the perimeter. And it’s not an isolated incident.
Smart, never one to sugarcoat things, laid it out plainly after the game.
“It doesn’t matter who it is. The team or the player doesn’t matter-when they play against us, everything goes through the roof,” Smart said. “If they were shooting 20%, they shoot 50%.”
It’s a frustrating pattern, and Smart knows it. But he’s also calling for accountability.
The urgency, he says, just isn’t there consistently enough on the defensive end. And in a league where energy and effort often separate contenders from pretenders, that’s a problem.
“Teams are doing a really good job of picking straight matchups and picking certain plays that they want to help them,” he added. “They’re doing a really good job of running on it.
We have to figure it out. It’s not easy-especially when you play for the Lakers.
You’re always the hunted, no matter what. We’re always going to get everybody’s best game.
We just have to figure out how to keep that under control.”
That’s the reality of wearing purple and gold. The Lakers are never just another game on the schedule-they’re a target. And right now, teams are capitalizing on L.A.’s defensive inconsistencies.
The upcoming stretch won’t do them any favors either. A road-heavy schedule looms, but Smart is choosing to see opportunity instead of adversity. He believes the Lakers can use this stretch to reset, regroup, and rediscover the edge they showed in a recent win over the Atlanta Hawks-a game where their desperation fueled a much-needed spark.
“It’s big for us,” Smart said. “Our schedule is a little chaotic right now.
But everybody’s going through it at some point in the season. We got to figure it out.
Nobody’s going to come save us. And we don’t need anybody to come save us.
… We just got to dig down and find what we had against Atlanta.”
That Atlanta game was a reminder of what this team can look like when it locks in-defensive intensity, offensive cohesion, and a sense of urgency that’s been missing too often. The challenge now is sustaining it, especially with a matchup against the Portland Trail Blazers on deck.
Despite the turbulence, Smart remains steady. He’s not panicking.
He’s not pointing fingers. And he’s not backing down from the grind.
Even through the ups and downs, he’s made it clear: he’s comfortable with the direction the Lakers are heading. And if Smart’s voice carries weight in the locker room-which it certainly does-then that belief might be exactly what this group needs to turn the corner.
The Lakers don’t need a miracle. They need consistency. And if they can find that defensive identity Smart keeps preaching about, they’ve still got time to write a different story this season.