On Wednesday night, the Los Angeles Lakers played host to the Victor Wembanyama-less San Antonio Spurs for the quarterfinals of the NBA Cup at Crypto.com Arena. The Lakers were heavily favored to come out on top in this matchup with Wembanyama still on the mend, but the Spurs didn’t need their superstar big man to get the win and advance to the semifinals in Las Vegas, Nevada.
The Spurs were the better team on Wednesday night, as they were able to get on top of the Lakers early, often, and ultimately enough to secure a 13-point win in Los Angeles.
JJ Redick Points Out Lakers’ Fatal Flaw
Even though the Lakers haven’t had any trouble on the offensive side of the basketball floor during the 2025-26 NBA season up to this point, the defensive end has been an issue, glaring enough to rub head coach JJ Redick the wrong way.
After the Lakers were eliminated from the NBA Cup on Wednesday night in Los Angeles, Redick spoke to the media and expressed frustration that his team continues to struggle defensively, via the Oh No He Didn’t X account.
“Very few teams don’t have something that you can expose,” Redick said. “And we’ve consistently gotten exposed to the same things.”
With Luka Dončić, Austin Reaves, and LeBron James forming one of the most intimidating offensive trios in the league, scoring is not a problem for the Lakers, and that likely won’t change moving forward unless injuries start to pile up.
JJ Redick:
“We’ve consistently got exposed in the same things” pic.twitter.com/HEY8OvoGav
— Oh No He Didn’t (@ohnohedidnt24) December 11, 2025
However, the team struggles defensively on a nightly basis, with that issue being overshadowed most of the time due to its high-powered offense. Dončić and Reaves are averaging over a combined 60 points per game, which tends to steal the headlines when the Lakers get wins, but when the team loses, the defensive problems are glaring.
Until the Lakers can correct their defensive issues, Los Angeles may continue to be considered a second-tier team in the Western Conference behind the defending NBA champion Oklahoma City Thunder and Nikola Jokić’s Denver Nuggets.
It’ll be interesting to see what the Lakers’ brass do to correct this problem, as it would be safe to assume the team will look to make a trade ahead of February’s NBA trade deadline to upgrade defensively.
In the meantime, the Lakers will likely continue to ride their high-powered offense led by Dončić in order to continue winning games and appear to be a legitimate title contender in the West.
