The Los Angeles Lakers are 1-7 through the first eight games of the season, and first-year coach Byron Scott believes the team's poor defensive play is to blame for the sub-par start.
Coming off of a 109-102 loss to the New Orleans Pelicans on the road Wednesday night, Scott blasted his team's defensive effort and said he wasn't sure if the flaws can be fixed.
"To be honest with you, most of the time, the things that we want to do, they haven't done," Scott said after the loss, according to ESPN Los Angeles. "And I don't know if it's because they're incapable of doing it or not."
The Lakers are in the midst of a two-game losing streak and their lone win on the season came against the 3-4 Charlotte Hornets and snapped a five-game season-opening skid.
Scott, who came in to coach the Lakers following Mike D'Antoni's resignation, was frustrated in his team's defensive effort Wednesday.
"They got pretty much anything they wanted in the paint with no resistance whatsoever," Scott said of the Pelicans (4-3). "It was just terrible. That was probably the worst defense that we've played from the preseason all the way to this particular point."
Los Angeles is coming off of a season where it finished a franchise-worst 27-55 and missed the playoffs for the first time since 2005. The Lakers are well on their way to missing the postseason again this year and the defense is last in the league in defensive efficiency, allowing 114.5 points per 100 possessions.
Scott has put an emphasis on defense that his team has failed to follow, allowing their opponents to score over 100 points in each loss thus far.
"We're not even close to our expectations, or at least mine," Scott said. "Like I said, we've just got to keep working. I know our guys are thinking a lot. We've got to get out of that pattern. But the effort has to be there and we have to play with a little more grit. That's the bottom line."
The Lakers next host the San Antonio Spurs (4-3) Friday at the Staples Center and if things don't turn around soon, Scott may change the defensive schemes around.
"I want to at least see if they can do it," he said. "If they can't, then we'll change. And I've told our guys that. We want to see in the next three or four games if we can do that, and if we can't, then we'll change and go to something else."
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