The Los Angeles Lakers inserted Max Christie into the starting lineup in order to give them a primary on-ball defender on the perimeter. Regardless of how great Anthony Davis is at cleaning up his teammates’ mistakes, the Lakers sorely needed an improvement on the perimeter in order to take their defense to a respectable level.
Now with Davis out due to an abdominal strain, the Lakers have lost the heart of their defense. It wasn’t an issue against the Washington Wizards as the Lakers dominated them, but going forward it will be a much more difficult task to contain teams without one of the best defensive bigs in the league.