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The world champion Los Angeles Lakers have a habit of failing to get up for games against lessor opponents as clearly demonstrated by their lucky double overtime win Saturday night against the lowly Detroit Pistons.

That this happened just a week after the Lakers played poorly and lost to the same Pistons by 15 points and just two days after playing their best half of the season to crush the Denver Nuggets only adds to the frustration. While Frank Vogel is not going to lose sleep over the Lakers’ disturbing tendency to play down to the level of lessor opponents, it’s still a bad habit for a team seeking to repeat as NBA champions and needs to be addressed.

Here are three simple ideas Frank Vogel could easily implement to cure the Lakers’ obvious motivational problems against lessor opponents: (1) Make the Game Fun, (2) Respect the Opponent, and (3) Practice Good Habits.

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1. MAKE THE GAME FUN

It’s easy for NBA coaches and players to forget the game of basketball is fun, especially during a long and trying regular season without cheering and adoring fans in the stands exulting every play and celebrating every basket. Lakers players seem to have the most fun when the team is wildly flying around trapping, doubling, and rotating on defense and relentlessly pushing the pace and fast breaking on offense. So let them play that way.

Stop the vanilla one-on-one defense that allows other teams to stay close and the boring repetitive isolation offense with everybody standing around and free the players to attack on defense, run on offense, and just have fun.

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2. RESPECT THE OPPONENT

Nothing is more disrespectful of an opponent than to treat a game with them as a trap game and that’s exactly what the Lakers’ coaching staff has done too often, sitting star players and forgetting every team can beat you. Game plan for the Pistons like you did for the Nuggets, give Grant and Jackson the same respect you gave Jokic and Murray, and come out and play like the Lakers instead of watering down your offense and defense.

The ‘trap’ in trap games refers to doing things differently due to disrespect, which starts with the coaching staff deciding how to approach the game and ends up with the team playing down to the level of their opponent.

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3. PRACTICE GOOD HABITS

NBA teams complain about never having time to practice and how games often become substitutes for practice but the reality is games against lessor opponents usually end up ignoring good habits and practicing bad habits. That’s actually the biggest concern with playing down to the level of your opponent, which is why it’s important for the Lakers to play the same style of basketball against lessor opponents that they play against top teams.

The most important game is always the next game and the most important opponent the next opponent, which is why it’s necessary to play the schedule one game at a time and use every game to practice good habits.

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The Lakers are trying build an identity as a team that’s committed to defense first and the aggressive defensive formula they’re deploying is to attack the top stars on each opponent with traps and doubles whether bigs or smalls. While there may be tweaks depending on whom they’re playing, the style the Lakers want to play shouldn’t vary greatly. Attack on defense and run on offense. That’s the championship blueprint they should bring every game.

The Lakers need to to make the game fun, respect the opponent, and practice good habits, which means treating each game and opponent as the most important. If they do that, they won’t have to worry about ‘trap’ games.