Not a fan of his lineups choices when he went with AD at the 5 twice in the second half No Kuzma or Dudley and a lot of Rondo meant a really undersized unit at both the guards and SF. I think we hemorrhaged points with AD at the 5: this should be a great lineup but instead I think this when Boston essentially put the game away in the 3rd quarter. Long term, either you trust Kuzma with AD/Lebron and give him reps or you have to move him for another big wing defender. Kuzma is not a savior or anything but the Lakers should never be overwhelmed physically and he didn't come in till like 2-3 minutes left in the 3rd. Frankly pretty odd since Kuzma showed he's willing to take on a physical wing last game and instead Jaylen Brown and Tatum got to feast on guys smaller then them
That's going to happen till the Lakers can get an upgrade over Rondo: don't blame Vogel for that. But a real head-scratcher not going with Kuzma or even Dudley - the Celts have 3 big wings and we sat our combo forwards while they blew the game wide open.
not blaming Vogel, theres just no lineup that works w/o james, ad just doesn't assert himself like a star should
I agree. What's up with that - he (D'Antoni) goes small by having no guy taller than 6-5 on the court... how hard is it to keep abusing them in the paint non-stop? I don't understand.
I don't think Vogel understands small ball very well. Sitting out Dwight and playing Rondo ended up screwing the Lakers, the team didn't seem to know how to play together. you got no additional spacing because of Rondo so you got all the worst things about a non-shooting center without any of the benefits. Houston called for more Dudley of all people, not Rondo if you didn't want to trust Dwight or Kuzma In addition, he's got a find a way to get minutes with Kuzma with Ad and Lebron: I've soured on Kuzma but without him, the Lakers lack of size at the wings gets exacerbated. AD at the 5 which should bring out the best of small ball while still having the benefit of a great big gets neutralized by the lack of size and length elsewhere. Getting Collison does not fix this issue. You either go with Kuzma or Dudley or you go down against teams who have more physical wings
I blame Vogel for not allowing Javale or Dwight to get more minutes. That's an absolute joke. Even if you're giving up points, their rebounding and rim presence causes teams to tire out. The way we allowed the Rockets to bully us with 6'4 guards is laughable. Almost makes me question if Vogel is the right coach going forward. On the other hand, Rondo+Kuzma are just terrible offensively/defensively. They both shouldn't see any minutes together because you're going to have to rely on your other three to make up for their terrible plays.
Never been a fan of going small to match opponents when you have the "big" advantage. Especially when Dwight and JaVale are both fairly mobile bigs. My guess is Vogel was afraid that Tucker would kill us from 3. Letting Tucker have a few open looks is an acceptable trade off for Dwight killing them on the boards and on easy lobs and put backs.
Exactly, you maximize Lebron's passing lanes which is the one advantage (other then Ad's versatility) that Lakers have over every other team in the league. Wear them the f*** out. Vogel cut his teeth in Indiana with Hibbert but the league went away from the plodding center type and he's doesn't seem to have a good grasp of how to use bigs in a small ball lineup (lebron at the 4) or if no center (lebron at the 5) how to structure the rest
Not really sure what he's doing with some of these lineups: McGee should never be in close game with 5 minutes left in the game when you have Howard available Unless I missed an injury not sure why KCP and Caruso got so few minutes. Combined they played less then half of Rondo s
I’m pretty convinced he is not enjoying hack a Howard in close games. Only the last 2 minutes are relatively safe. This is a problem still with Dwight.
I think he gives Rondo more minutes in the hope that he would get injured because there is just no rhyme or reason to play him
Probably, but Dwight went for 12 / 8 in only 13 minutes. We need Dwight on the court for more than 13 minutes.
