For a moment in the Los Angeles Lakers’ game against the Detroit Pistons on Tuesday, it appeared the Lakers had found the right way to play.

After trailing by as many as 14 points in the first half, the Lakers tied the game at 79 when Luka Dončić scored through an Ausar Thompson foul — Thompson’s fourth personal — putting Detroit in foul trouble. Over the next 16 minutes, the Lakers rebounded, forced turnovers and let their two stars shine. Dončić scored 14 points and went 6 of 8 from the line. LeBron James scored 12 points and hit three 3s.

But the Lakers’ couldn’t stem the tide. The Pistons shot 58.3 percent from the field down the stretch, outscoring the Lakers 43-17 over the next 13:38 and turned a tie game into garbage time after Dončić fouled Duncan Robinson through a rare Detroit 3-point shot.

The 128-106 Lakers loss ended the 2025 portion of their season and erased any momentum from Sunday’s win in Sacramento, despite Lakers coach JJ Redick promising an “uncomfortable” reset.

Detroit entered Tuesday’s game as one of the league’s worst shooting teams. Yet, the Pistons only needed 24 attempts from 3 to match Los Angeles’ 11 makes. The Pistons also made more shots in the paint (37-of-47) than the Lakers even attempted (22-of-34). The Lakers surrendered 74 paint points, got hammered by the Pistons in transition, giving up a season-high 31 fast-break points, and for the third time this month, they allowed 30 points off turnovers.

But the Lakers’ stars weren’t talking about defense in the postgame news conference — the focus was instead on giveaways.

“We had a lot of pick-6s tonight,” said James, who is now 41 years old. “They’re a fast, explosive team. All that athleticism.”

The Lakers sit at 20-11, but they will enter 2026 having been outscored by 13 points over their 31 games. In many ways, the Lakers are in a better place than they were this time last year, when they were 18-14 with a minus-77 point differential (perhaps that was the first sign of Dončić’s arrival in 2025). But the Lakers have improvements to be make, and it starts with Dončić and James being on the same page with their teammates, and each other.

Against the Pistons, James had a poor assist-turnover ratio of 4:5. But none of James’ turnovers were pick-6s. He had three dead-ball turnovers in the first half, got stolen in the backcourt by Javonte Green in the fourth quarter that led directly to a foul and then got picked off by Pistons center Jalen Duren on a fastbreak that was killed by Marcus Smart drawing a Duren foul.

Dončić, on the other hand, had a nightmarish eight turnovers. After a first-quarter traveling violation, the last seven of Dončić’s turnovers were Pistons steals. That didn’t include some of his worst shots that operated like turnovers, such as this air-balled contested 3 that led to one of Cade Cunningham’s 11 assists, as he found a streaking Isaiah Stewart for a fast-break dunk: