Late in the third quarter of their Sunday matchup against the Phoenix Suns, the Los Angeles Lakers started to play the type of winning defense that their fans have been practically begging for. During a stretch of roughly 10 minutes that extended into the fourth quarter, they scored 24 unanswered points and forced seven turnovers, allowing them to take a 95-77 lead.

However, after that outstanding spurt, the Lakers fell back into their old bad habits on both ends of the floor. They started to walk the ball upcourt and milk the shot clock, as if they were merely looking to conservatively protect their lead rather than build on it and hold off Phoenix. That behavior played right into Phoenix’s hands, and they ended up having to pull out a 116-114 victory by the skin of their teeth after the Suns made a couple of big mistakes in the final seconds.

Advertisement

It was another reminder that the Lakers still have a lot of work to do in order to seriously contend for the NBA championship.

Hall of Famer Paul Pierce went off on them during a recent episode of the “No Fouls Given” podcast for the way they gave up their lead in the last several minutes of Sunday’s game. He said the Lakers — and the Suns — had very poor basketball IQ in the final minutes of that contest, and that neither team will be able to win a playoff series this spring as a result.

“This was one of the lowest IQ, last four minutes I’ve seen from both teams this season. And based on what I saw, neither one of these teams can win a playoff series.”

Of course, the Lakers are likely not as reckless and undisciplined as they looked in the final minutes of Sunday’s game, nor are they as good a defensive team as they looked during that 10-minute stretch late in the third quarter and early in the fourth quarter. They do have an 18-7 record, which gives them an elite winning percentage, and are in third place in the Western Conference.

But Los Angeles hasn’t played the Denver Nuggets, Houston Rockets or New York Knicks yet, and when it faced the defending NBA champion Oklahoma City Thunder a month ago, it lost 121-92, albeit with LeBron James still out due to sciatica. Continuing to put forth the same ineptitude they displayed late in Sunday’s game will almost certainly result in decisive losses against the Nuggets, Rockets, Knicks and especially the Thunder.

Advertisement

This article originally appeared on LeBron Wire: Paul Pierce on Lakers’ basketball IQ in crunch time of Sunday’s game