MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Lamar Odom went right to the heart of the Lakers’ troubles after they fell to the Memphis Grizzlies tonight and suffered only their second three-game losing streak since Pau Gasol was acquired from Memphis on Feb. 1, 2008. Here’s some of what Odom had to say after the Lakers fell to 5-5 in their last 10 games:

“Defense takes unity. We’re a lot closer than we’re showing on the court as a team. We’re used to getting stops and talking, the energy picks up as a team. And we let teams hang around us. I watched teams almost start to give up before the game. Like, our first 11 games, I watched teams come in our gym or us go places and they almost gave up and then we kind of took our foot off the gas and we gave them confidence and we’ve started losing to teams I really felt like we shouldn’t be losing to.

“I don’t feel like they’ve beaten us to where we don’t know what to do or how to match up or anything like that. I think we have to get back to how we were playing as a group. Because your energy picks up, your focus picks up and the game comes really easy. Everybody shoots it well enough and passes well enough to make it really easy. A lot of the teams we were playing wouldn’t even get close to it. I’ve seen it. Earlier in the season. We were kind of toying with them a little bit.”