LeBron James knows the Los Angeles Lakers can't afford to make any sloppy mistakes with the current state of the roster.
"That's how our team is constructed," James said Sunday after the team's 116-102 defeat to the Los Angeles Clippers, according to Dan Woike of The Los Angeles Times. "We don't have room for error - for much error."
James added, "We don't have a choice. I mean ... that's the way our team is constructed. And we have to, we have to play close-to-perfect basketball."
Lakers head coach JJ Redick echoed James' comments and stressed the importance of fundamentals to compensate for the squad's flaws.
"We don't have a huge margin for error. Nor can we create that margin organically," Redick said. "It has to be emphasized daily to touch the paint, to play paint-to-great mentality, make the extra pass. We don't have a guy on our team that's going to necessarily always draw two to the ball. We don’t have a guy on our team that's going to be able to get past his guy one-on-one and get to the paint and spread it out to the perimeter.
"Like, that's just not our team. So we have to do it through connectivity, through execution. And when we do that, we're really good."
Two of the Lakers' biggest weaknesses were on display against their crosstown rivals as they shot only 9-of-27 from deep and were outmatched in the paint against Ivica Zubac.
Ty Lue's second-ranked defense racked up 12 steals against the Lakers and scored 21 points off turnovers.
The Clippers led by as many as 26 points. The Lakers cut the deficit to 11 with 8:04 remaining but couldn't pull any closer.
The Lakers have dropped four of their past six games and sit sixth in the West with a 22-18 record.
