INGLEWOOD — Lakers coach JJ Redick, who is nearing the midway point of his first season with the organization, didn’t need a lot of time to learn a valuable lesson about the team he’s at the helm of. “Nothing is going to be easy for our team,” Redick said on Sunday night after the Lakers’ 116-102 loss to the Clippers in their first visit to Intuit Dome. “And I figured that out very early in the season. And that’s OK. We’re going to keep fighting.” The Lakers’ 22-18 record after Sunday is an improvement from their 19-21 record through 40 games last year. But their point differential of minus-2.6 per game makes them not only the lone team in the top-10 of the Western Conference to have a point differential below zero, but also ranks No. 12 in the 15-team conference (only Utah, New Orleans and Portland are worse). Nothing comes easy for the Lakers – at least when they’re not dialed in on their game plan and execution. When they are, they’ve been able to compete with the best teams in the league. But when they don’t, they let go of the rope quickly. It’s why they have a 6-12 record in games decided by 10 points or more – the worst record among the top-10 teams in the West. And it’s why they’re 11-17 record against teams with a record of .500 or better. “It just goes back to not having a huge margin for error,” Redick said after their fourth loss in the past six games. “And I think our group is like, if one guy is gone from the rotation, there’s an exponential effect to that. When we’re healthy, we’re whole and we’re playing connected and we execute, we’re a great basketball team. That’s what I mean by that.” Redick added: “We don’t have a huge margin for error. And nor can we create that margin organically. It has to be emphasized daily to touch the paint, to play paint to great mentality, make the extra pass. We don’t have a guy on our team that is necessarily always [drawing] two to the ball. We don’t have a guy on our team that’s going to be able to get past his guy one-on-one and get to the paint and spread it out to the perimeter. “That’s just not our team. So we have to do it through connectivity, through execution. And when we do that, we’re really good.” LeBron James expressed a similar sentiment after the game, saying that the team’s roster construction limits their margin for error. “That’s how our team is constructed,” the four-time league MVP said. “We don’t have room for error – for much error.” Which makes the marathon that is the 82-game NBA regular season even more challenging than it needs to be. “We don’t have a choice,” James said. “That’s the way our team is constructed. And we have to play close to perfect basketball.” Related Articles Lakers | Swanson: What would it take for the Clippers to gain ground on the Lakers? Lakers | Lakers’ slim margin of error, uncertain identity exposed in loss to Clippers Lakers | Clippers welcome Lakers to Intuit Dome with dominant win Lakers | Lakers’ Gabe Vincent rounding into form offensively Lakers | Clippers finally get to host Lakers in their own house With the NBA’s trade deadline 2½ weeks away, the comments from Redick and James put a focus on the Lakers’ roster construction and ways they can increase their margin for error. But there are always ways the Lakers can help themselves that don’t involve trades or adding new players. “Not turn the ball over,” All-Star big man Anthony Davis said. “Can’t control makes or misses, but some nights we struggle to shoot the basketball. Some nights the ball goes in for us. Just laying our hats on defense. You can’t control makes or misses. But you can control your effort on defense. And I think we have had some slippage defensively, but for the most part, the fight is there. The effort is there. We just gotta do a better job of getting more stops in a row.” WIZARDS AT LAKERS When: Tuesday, 7:30 p.m. Where: Crypto.com Arena TV/radio: Spectrum SportsNet/710 AM