On Friday night, the Los Angeles Lakers walked onto the parquet floor in body, but their minds were still hiding in the TD Garden locker room.
The Lakers lost big, 113-96, as Rajon Rondo put on a point guard clinic that showed exactly how to carve up the Lakers early and often.
In the blink of an eye, the Lakers trailed by 16 points. The game was not even eight minutes old, and the Lakers had allowed the Celtics to burst out of the gates and hang 25 points on the scoreboard. The Lakers had slugged their way to nine points, as Kobe Bryant started cold. Luckily, Jordan Hill hit all of his shots and had seven points at that point to save face for the purple and gold.
"Bad start," Lakers coach Byron Scott said after the game on Time Warner Cable Sportsnet. "They played harder than we did. We got exactly what we deserved."
Truth be told, none of the Lakers looked comfortable all night long. Bryant would finish with 22 points on 9-21 shooting, and he never seemed in rhythm. Obviously, Bryant was not alone, as the Lakers' starting unit failed to get going in either half. In both halves, the Lakers bench worked to keep LA in the game, but the starters crumbled the game away.
Starters Carlos Boozer and Wesley Johnson would finish with only one made shot in 11 attempts. Although Jeremy Lin finished with 14 points and was especially positive when he put his head down and attacked the basket, he failed to lead the offense. The Lakers' point guard was still unable to set the offensive table or find any consistent rhythm with his teammates. He finished with only two assists on the night to go along with two turnovers.
As a team, the Lakers failed to adequately move the ball and logged only 14 assists to go along with 12 turnovers.
Rondo finished with 16 assists by himself, and he only had one turnover on the night. But the Celtics weren't all Rondo -- Friday was a memorable night for third-year center Tyler Zeller. The beneficiary of several of Rondo's assists and a porous Lakers' defense, Zeller only missed one shot and set a new career-high with 24 points. His plus-minus differential was an astounding plus-39, meaning the Celtics outscored the Lakers by 39 points when the 24-year-old was on the court.
With the loss, the Lakers fell to 5-15 on the season, and Scott seemed dissatisfied with what he had seen thus far. After the game, he promised changes to the starting lineup before Sunday's game at Staples Center. The coach would not specify which positions would be changed, but he did say the time had come. When pressed on why he thought the time was right, the coach pointed to the Lakers' dismal record after 20 games.
"It's been time enough" Scott said. "It's time to make a few changes."
