How did the Lakers manage to lose to the Indiana Pacers. Before I get into the Lakers scarily pathetic performance at Canseco Fieldhouse, allow me to remind everyone that the Boston Celtics also lost to the Pacers this season. With that said, this loss was not a good way to start a three game Eastern Conference trip.

The stats explain everything from this game and three minutes of looking at the box score explains everything. Again, before I go into pointing out different parts of the box score, its important that everyone understands that although the bench is responsible for leading the Lakers to a big 17-0 run late in the third quarter, they did not perform as well in the first half and the starters were not able to carry the team alone.

I’ve been hearing it for a while now that the Lakers playing soft in the first half and then going on big runs in the third quarter was eventually going to catch up with them. It finally caught up with them. The run the bench made to close the third was remarkable, however, if the team managed to be up at the half by lets say 10 points, then the third quarter run of 17-0 would’ve added on and given the Lakers a lead that Indiana would have no chance of making up. Down by only 15 points, the Pacers launched up three pointer after three pointer and slowly cut the lead. As a matter of fact, it wasn’t so slow, they managed to catch up pretty quickly and force the Lakers to panic. Gasol missed a few easy shots tonight that he normally makes but thats not the reason we lost.

The reason the Lakers lost is poor rebounding. Strange to say that. I never thought the Lakers problem would be a lack of rebounding. With a huge starting lineup of Andrew Bynum, Pau Gasol and Vladimir Radmanovic, the Lakers fronline has no excuse for not collecting every rebound. The Indiana Pacers however outrebounded the Lakers by 9 for the game and managed to collect 19 offensive rebounds. How is that possible? How do Rasho Nesterovic and Troy Murphy get 6 offensive rebounds each? How do the Pacers take 99 shots in the game? How do the Pacers shoot under 50%, the Lakers shoot over 50%, and the Pacer manage to win? Does 19 offensive rebound answer the question? Does 23 more shots for the Pacers than the Lakers answer the question for you?

Well thats exactly what happened on this Tuesday night in Indiana. It was sad and pathetic to watch the Pacers pull in offensive board after offensive board and continue to hoist up shots. If you take a look at just the Lakers box score, they look like they had a pretty good game. They had six players in double figures as Kobe Bryant led the way with 28 points. Gasol had 20 points and Bynum had 17 points. The other two starters Derek Fisher and Vladimir Radmanovic had 10 points a piece. Trevor Ariza was the spark off the bench, again, and finished with 13 points. Ariza and Lamar Odom had 3 steals each and Bynum and Gasol pulled in 9 rebound a piece. Kobe had 7 rebounds and Odom had 5 assists. Put all this together and you come up with 117 points on a total of 76 shots with 39 of them going in, good enough for 51.3% shooting. With 33-45 free throws going in you just can’t imagine how good of a game the other team must have had in order to pull out a win.

Guess what… it wasn’t that good of a game. The Pacers box score actually doesn’t look that interesting. Danny Granger scored 32 points to lead the Pacers while TJ Ford was second in scoring with 21 points. The other three starters, Troy Murphy, Marquis Daniels, and Rasho Nesterovic had 16 points each. The bench combined for a total of 17 points, 11 rebound, 4 assists, 1 steal, and 4 blocks. It’s quite obvious that the starters took care of this game single handedly. Of course until you realize that Josh McRoberts came off the bench and gave the team 6 rebounds, 2 of which were offensive giving the team second chance opportunities. Of the Pacers 99 shots, 45 of them went in. 24 of the Pacers 118 points, were second chance points and thats where the Lakers got killed. The Lakers six 4th quarter turnovers didn’t help much either.

This game can be looked at one of two ways. The first way to judge this game is to say, the Lakers lost to a team that got lucky off a last second put back. The pacers will only make that shot one out of ten times and shouldn’t count for much. Danny Grangers buzzer beater to close out the first half was also luck and it was just the Pacers night to win.

You could also look at this game as one the Lakers should’ve won and donated by not being aggresive enough on the defensive end as well as on the boards. As this is the second game the Lakers have lost, teams will continue to watcht apes of these games and figure out where the Lakers weaknesses are. Why have they lost to Detroit and Indiana.

It’s actually quite simple everyone. The Lakers have lost to the two teams that play small ball and put up a lot of outside shots. The Detroit Pistons offense seems to be quite similar to that of the Indiana Pacers and the Lakers have struggled in closing out on wide open guys on the perimeter. It seems like the defense in the paint is perfectly fine and the team hasn’t lost its touch in the key, but the lack of coverage on the outside is something Phil Jackson will really have to address in the coming weeks.