After missing eight games, LeBron James returned to the Los Angeles Lakers lineup in time to face the Boston Celtics on Friday, and things looked promising … at first.

His presence clearly uplifted his teammates, especially Anthony Davis. Early on, LeBron sparked the offense, AD was dominating, and the Lakers' ball movement and general activity were ideal. They led 38-30.

Then, a plot twist. The final three quarters were a different story entirely.

The Lakers were outscored 100-70 from the second quarter on. Their defense utterly collapsed, their energy dissipated, and Davis started going through the motions. Talen Horton-Tucker had his first bad game since returning from injury. Frankly, it was a bloodbath in Boston. 130-108, Celtics.

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To make matters worse, Lakers' castoff Dennis Schröder shined for the Celtics — who were down two starters, including All-Star Jaylen Brown. The Lakers dropped to 8-9, and 0-2 on their first East Coast trip of the 2021-22 NBA season. (Afterward, Anthony Davis said the Lakers “need all three” remaining games on the trip.)

In expectation of LeBron’s return, I posited that, for all that he brings to the table (basically, everything, per Frank Vogel), he can’t single-handedly solve all the Lakers' problems.

For his part, James looked pretty good in his first game in 2.5 weeks. He scored 23 points on 10-of-16 shooting.

“Physically I felt okay, good enough to know that I could trust my body and get out and play,” LeBron said afterward while acknowledging that “how I feel when I wake up in the morning will be the tell-tale sign” if he's “moving in the right direction.”

Yet, the Lakers' pre-existing conditions were more debilitating than ever on Friday at the TD Garden, despite any remedies LeBron offers. Let’s run through five.

5) Third quarters

The Lakers were abysmal for the final three quarters. In their postgame remarks, Vogel, Davis, and LeBron lamented the Lakers' lackluster play out of the locker room — a problem all season long.

“We did not have a good third,” Vogel said. “We were stuck in mud.”

The Lakers came into Friday with a -80 point differential in third quarters through 17 games this season. They were outscored 33-21 in Beantown.

“We just gotta find a way to score in the 3rd quarter. That’s been our Kryptonite all season.”

Whatever they're doing (or not doing) at halftime, something has to change here.

4) Soft in the paint

The Lakers have been dominated in the paint this season. Davis, Vogel, and Carmelo Anthony called out the Lakers' energy, effort and communication, which has been a troubling theme of the past few weeks.

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Los Angeles entered Friday ranked 29th in the NBA in opposing points in the paint per game. Against a Boston team playing without starting big Robert Williams, they were outscored 56-36 inside. Seemingly, every Celtics possession in the fourth quarter ended with a layup or free throws (they took 38 freebies).

The Lakers were also out-rebounded by 19. Vogel called their effort on the boards “atrocious.”

“That's just energy,” Carmelo said. “We have to get the 50/50 basketballs…We can be better at rebounding the basketball. To get outrebounded 51-33 tonight, that's something that's just not a part of our makeup as a team.”

This is following Giannis Antetokounmpo's 47-point explosion on Wednesday. Maybe Frank Vogel should consider playing Dwight Howard for more than 5 non-garbage time minutes.

3) Perimeter defense

Many of the Lakers' woes defending the paint can be chalked up to their wings' inability to keep players in front of them. On Friday, Russell Westbrook and Avery Bradley were torched by Schröder (21 points) and defensive-specialist Marcus Smart (22 points).

Talen Horton-Tucker's inability to contain Jayson Tatum clearly affected THT's floor game (playing more off-ball with LeBron back shook him, too). He finished with 2 points on 0-of-6 shooting, while Tatum dropped 37.

We've talked about this ad nauseam since the summer, but there isn't an obvious fix for the Lakers perimeter defense, especially if Kent Bazemore is going to remain in an unplayable funk. In terms of possible reinforcements from the injured list, well, Kendrick Nunn is an offense-first guy, Trevor Ariza is a power forward at this stage of his career, and Austin Reaves — while impressive — should not be that essential to this accomplished, veteran-laden group.

“I don’t think it’s our offense,” Anthony Davis opined. “I think it’s our defense, honestly. We need to be better on the defensive end.”

2) Russell Westbrook

It seems like everything Russell Westbrook does is a perfect distillation of the Russ Experience overall. The latest example: Following up his best game with the Lakers with one of his worst.

Westbrook was unproductive on offense: 12 points, 5-of-13 FG, 1-4 3PT, 1-4 FT. He had six assists and zero feel for his team. He took a few confoundingly bad jumpers to start the third quarter, which directly led to a Celtics run.

The only time I saw him move without the basketball was to make the same cut as Avery Bradley, causing them to nearly crash into each other and clog the paint. He remains a negative on defense.

Part of this can be attributed to the return of LeBron, which, in the short term, affects everybody differently (especially without any practice time). Westbrook obviously didn't know quite how to approach his combo guard role as LeBron orchestrated. But Westbrook's game-to-game volatility makes everything more complicated…and worrisome.

Eventually, he and LeBron have to mesh, and he has to make better decisions when James is off the court.

1) Offensive stagnation

The Lakers whipped the ball around in the first quarter. They had eight assists as a team.

But they had just two assists in the second quarter, five in the third, and five in the fourth (the latter three in garbage time after the bench had been emptied). They opened the third with four straight long jumpers and settled for far too many early-shot-clock Js and isolation fadeaways.

The Lakers have been unable to find a balance between their offense and defense. Their best offensive lineups struggle to guard, and vice versa. That said, they simply have to be more unselfish and active. They show it in spurts.

The Lakers, primarily Westbrook, continue to preach patience, noting that him and LeBron have played seven games together.

James, frankly, wasn't buying that.

“We damn sure need to play better,” he said. “It’s never that we got 65 games and we’ll figure it out then…There’s no level of panic, but there should be a sense of urgency every time we hit the floor. … It's never as bad as it may feel, and it's never as good as it may seem.”