Lakers News: LA Concedes Team Outclassed By Celtics Starters

The Christmas loss dropped the Lakers to a 2-6 record since the In-Season Tournament.

Your 16-15 Los Angeles Lakers fell 126-115 to the 23-6 Boston Celtics during a Christmas Day matinee Monday, their sixth loss in the eight games they've played since winning the NBA's inaugural In-Season Tournament.

Reserve Los Angeles combo guard Austin Reaves reflected after the game just how tough the club was to cover, Helene Elliott of The Los Angeles Times writes.

“It’s tough with them,” Reaves said. “They have a lot of really good players that have bought into what they’re trying to do. You see that."

“You look at their starting five: Jrue Holiday took 10 shots and was seven for 10. For the most part every night those guys are going to be efficient because they don’t have to take bad shots.”

It's fascinating that Reaves specifically pointed to Boston's first five (All-Star Holiday, Derrick White, All-Star forwards Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum, and center Kristaps Porzingis). It's not secret that the Lakers' starters were terrible together against the Celtics, as they were incredibly easy to scheme against with just two above-average three-point shooters in the lineup (Taurean Prince and LeBron James). 

Reaves, by the way, would go a long way towards curing what ails LA, given that he is a solid three-point shooter and would give the team another creator in Darvin Ham's starting five. He (and we) would like him to start, please, over one of Cam Reddish or Jarred Vanderbilt, neither of whom did much defensively yesterday, despite supposedly being good on that end of the floor.