The Lakers are heading into Portland bruised-physically, mentally, and defensively.
Fresh off a tough loss at home to Charlotte, the Lakers won’t just be licking their wounds-they’ll be without their biggest weapon. Luka Doncic, the NBA’s leading scorer, is sidelined with left groin soreness and will miss Saturday night’s matchup. That’s a major blow for a team that’s already searching for consistency on both ends of the floor.
And the injury report doesn’t stop there. The frontcourt is in flux, with both Jaxson Hayes and Deandre Ayton listed as questionable.
Hayes is dealing with left hamstring tendinopathy, while Ayton is nursing soreness in his left knee. That leaves the Lakers potentially thin in the paint, which is never ideal-especially on the road.
But it’s not just the injuries that have this team on edge. It’s the defense, or lack thereof.
In their loss to the Hornets, the Lakers gave up 137 points while allowing Charlotte to shoot over 53 percent from the field. That’s not just a bad night-it’s a defensive meltdown, and one that didn’t go unnoticed in the locker room.
Veteran guard Marcus Smart didn’t sugarcoat it.
“When they play us, everything goes through the roof,” Smart said bluntly. “We have to figure it out.”
He’s not wrong. The Lakers have shown flashes of being a team that can lock in and grind out wins, but too often this season, they’ve let games slip away with lapses in defensive focus and energy.
Giving up 137 at home to a team like Charlotte? That’s a red flag, and the players know it.
At 24-15, the Lakers are still in solid shape record-wise, but there’s a sense that things are teetering a bit. The margin for error shrinks when your best player is out and your big men are banged up. And with Portland hungry to capitalize on a vulnerable opponent, this becomes more than just another regular-season game-it’s a gut check.
This is where teams either pull together or start to unravel. The Lakers have the talent, but with Doncic out and the defense under the microscope, they’ll need more than talent to get back on track.
They need urgency. They need cohesion.
And above all, they need stops.
Saturday night in Portland won’t define their season-but how they respond just might.