LOS ANGELES \u2014 The blueprint for success that the Heat turned to this summer was on display Monday night at Crypto.com Arena.<\/p>\n
The problem was it was on display by the opposition.<\/p>\n
Get a great player. Surround with complementary talent. Ride the coattails.<\/p>\n
The Lakers did just that in this one, with Luka Doncic, on the scoring roll of his career, powering Los Angeles past the Heat 138-117<\/a> with his 42 points.<\/p>\n Giannis Antetokounmpo, landed by the Heat to do the same, ultimately could not keep pace, closing with 30 points.<\/p>\n So the Lakers improved to 6-2, while the Heat fell to 2-5.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not good enough,\u201d Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said of his team\u2019s defense. \u201cOur locker\u00a0 room knows it\u2019s not good enough. We need to be just a whole lot more consistent defensively.\u201d<\/p>\n Shooting 14 of 24 from the field and 8 of 10 from the foul line, Doncic rounded out his stat line with 13 assists and seven rebounds. He was supported by 27 points from Austin Reaves, with the type of one-two punch the Heat could not counter.<\/p>\n Antetokounmpo rounded out his stat line with 12 rebounds and seven assists.<\/p>\n The Heat also got 19 points from Klay Thompson and 15 from Davion Mitchell, but nothing more than a mundane 16 points and nine rebounds from Bam Adebayo.<\/p>\n \u201cI need to do a better job of getting this group to defend to our potential,\u201d Spoelstra said. \u201cWe\u2019re all accountable to this, everybody in that locker room, the players and the staff alike. We have to figure it out, and we\u2019re fully capable of doing it.\u201d<\/p>\n That stood as the theme in the postgame locker room.<\/p>\n \u201cI feel like we just got to truly trust each other on that end,\u201d Adebayo said of the defensive collapses. \u201cI feel like it\u2019s, we think we give enough, and it\u2019s not.\u00a0 I feel like we got to full out trust each other, because a lot of times I feel like when fatigue sets in, we stop communicating, and that\u2019s when mistakes happen.\u201d<\/p>\n Five Degrees of Heat from Monday night\u2019s game:<\/p>\n 1. Game flow: The Lakers led 37-30 at the end of the opening period and 79-72 at halftime. The 79 points tied for the most yielded by the Heat in a first half in their 39 seasons.<\/p>\n \u201cI mean, we never got a handle on any aspect of it,\u201d Spoelstra said of his team\u2019s defense. \u201cYou expect it to be a big challenge with a savant like Doncic. But in the first half they were getting everything.<\/p>\n \u201cGoing into the locker room, you score 72, you\u2019re not expecting to be down.\u201d<\/p>\n Mitchell was up to four 3-pointers by halftime, already surpassing his previous season high, closing a 4 of 4 on 3-pointers.<\/p>\n The Lakers then opened the second period with an 11-0 run, pushed their lead into the 20s midway through the third quarter and went into the fourth up 111-93.<\/p>\n \u201cWe gotta have a better sense of urgency,\u201d Mitchell said.<\/p>\n 2. Luka time: Doncic played as advertised, entering with a league-leading 37.2 scoring average (Stephen Curry was second at 27.6), at 43.8 over his previous four games.<\/p>\n He was up to 16 points by the end of the first period, drawing constant traps and double teams. He stood with 24 points and eight assists at halftime, his fifth consecutive game with at least 20 points in the first half.<\/p>\n Doncic was coming off a 45-point, 15-rebound, five-assist, five-steal performance in Sunday\u2019s home victory over the Toronto Raptors. It was the fourth time in five games that Doncic scored at least 40.<\/p>\n Entering Monday, the only players who had scored more points than Doncic over their first six games of a season were Wilt Chamberlain, Michael Jordan, and Jack Twyman.<\/p>\n \u201cHe can make plays, every play in the book that you need to make as a point-of-attack guy,\u201d Spoelstra said. \u201cYou have to pick him up 30 feet. He can make every pass in the book.\u00a0 He can read your defense.<\/p>\n \u201cHe understands what we\u2019re trying to do. He positions guys in the right spots and he makes the right play over and over and over. That\u2019s what the greats do.\u201d<\/p>\n Doncic also was his usual feisty self, called for a second-period technical foul for complaining about the officiating.<\/p>\n