Playoffs - Round 1: Lakers Vs. Wolves

- Luka needs to work on his conditioning this offseason, I get he played 45 minutes, but he’s 26 and shouldn’t be this gassed.

- We need a big this offseason to provide some basic rim protection and be a lob threat on offense. Hayes ain’t it.

- LeBron is not getting any younger. That’s all I have. We need to figure a way to conserve him for the playoffs and keep him healthy as much as possible. A big part of this has to be Luka/Reaves taking on most of the burden during the season.

- I’m hoping Reaves grows from this. I think he met his match with the Twolves perimeter defenders and it’s been kind of embarrassing.

- We need another DFS. He’s not perfect, but we have too many role players that are either good on defense and suck on offense, or vice versa.

 

JJ going all D’Antoni on us was not smart. Our guys were clearly gassed at the end of the game. But what it comes down is their role players are stepping up and ours are not. We don’t have anyone like Naz Reid or Jaden McDaniel’s who are consistently hitting shots and playing great defense. We don’t have a good matchup for Ant man or Randle. Luka has to pretty much make every play on offense and we’re getting into whatever sets we’re trying to run way too late and we’re having too take way too many contested shots late in the clock (at least late in the games). When we do generate good looks DFS, Rui, and Reaves aren’t knocking them down consistently.

 

Yeah. We’ve got our guy to build around and some solid role players. Front office is all in on Luka and we will build this summer.

 

I definitely think we needed to make some substitutions. Can’t recall the last time I saw that where no one came out a whole half.

 

Overall though, I’m honestly not that bummed. Hard fought game where our guys gave it their all but were clearly running on fumes down the stretch.

 

I don’t subscribe to the debbie downer mentality. If you want to constantly move through life thinking the sky is always falling that’s up to you.

 

it's never happened before in the playoffs

i think JJ should've brought vando in at some point, but he really had no choice but to keep those guys out there. the bench just flat out sucks

if you take luka out, the offense will struggle and if you take lebron out, the defense will struggle

 

We played really good for 3 and a half quarters. Just ran out of steam there at the end. I think it’s a fair criticism on JJ that he played the guys the full half, but if you lose this game, the series is pretty much over. So it is what it is. They felt those 5 guys gave us the best chance to win, and you can see why, Reaves and Rui shot lights out in that second half. DFS defended great and hit that big 3.

At the end of the 4th, each of Reaves, LeBron and Luka got into the teeth of the defence and couldn’t finish a layup. While on the other end Naz hit a big 3 and Antman hit 3 of them. The margins are super small and it didn’t go our way.

It kind of feels like the Denver series the last two years. We had chances to win in the last two games and just got pipped at the finish line. A few plays go differently and we are 3-1 up. Instead this will be over in 6 most likely. Damn shame.

 

We still win in 7 IMO. Blowout is coming next, for sure.

 

I love it but then I woke up and realize we’re too small

 

Sure if somehow one of our guys baits Ant Man into punching them and he’s suspended a game then maybe we can win.

 

You spelled his name wrong- it’s “Antoni.” There is no “D” at all associated with him.

 

The bench definitely hasn’t given us enough. But with LeBron being old and Luka coming off an illness and still not being in great shape, I feel like we had to give them a couple minutes each. Stagger in Gabe and Vando once we were up double digits and give them some kind of breather. I put several of our bad plays and missed shots down the stretch on tired legs.

 

I’m really surprised that JJ didn’t realize this.

 

Yeah. I think he was frustrated by their poor play. I get the frustration but our guys just aren’t iron men that can play a whole half like that.

 

I’m sorry, but your starting center playing 4 minutes is absolutely ridiculous. I don’t care how bad he’s playing. You need some semblance of size out there.

 

Put in Len lol

 

Did think lakers loss are of their own making but Minn is clearly better randle has wrecked them almost every gm in this series