WMC 24-25: Seasonal Highs And Lows!

Anyone with 10 working brain cells knew that he was an important piece. That's a major f*** up and a smdh moment. Bigger than the Zubac trade.

 

AC magnified LeBron and AD, with historic plus/minus numbers. No player we now can approach those numbers

 

Team continues to get punched and folds immediately. Tough to watch.

 

you will never win an nba game going 6-32 from three when your opponent goes 15-44. as i expected before the game, AC, lonzo, and derozan really wanted this one, and it showed. we didn't match the intensity (which is our season-long identity, with or without lebron), and we were uber cold from the perimeter which cut off attempts to exploit our size on offense. not sure how many times i have to say it, but bigs don't just "beat doubles", and you can't post up with 3-4 guys in the paint. especially not if nobody's converting threes.

 

The team isn't that good right now.

Injuries, age, Westbrick, etc.

It's still early, but this is a rough beginning.

 

nobody expected us to be good right now. including fans on this forum. and that was when we expected health.

if you told me lebron, THT, and nunn were going to miss most of our first 20 games, i'd have adjusted my "slightly over .500" prediction downward.

chicago easily handled the mighty clippers just a couple days ago. we weren't ready to play them.

good chance milwaukee sees our visit as a chance to make a statement, too, so just...be ready.

 

They didn't handle the Clippers.

I watched the game.

Edit. Actually, they did. They went up by 17 in the first half. .

Clips came back and briefly took a 79-78 lead in the 3rd quarter. Could have been the 4th.

The Bulls embarrassed us.

 

i mean, i guess the clippers led for 12 seconds of that game early in the 4th, but quickly pushed it back to 8-10 points and held it there. i'd say that's a pretty easy game, for the most part.

 

I wouldn't. Clips were never out of it.

Never. They competed the whole time.

If we had that type of effort, I wouldn't be upset.

We just collapsed.

 

guess that's where i differ. a loss is a loss.

both teams lost at home to the bulls a few days apart. point is that chicago is hitting on all cylinders early in the season. if we play washington, they'll probably clean our clocks, too.

 

if lebron's here, we take the two okc games for sure, and things look so much different right now, even with few other changes. those were just killers. and yes, we're heading for the bottom of the playoff picture again. this happens when you change out all but three players on your team!

 

we pay him 45 million a year. i'd say that's a statement of need.

what it really means is that the guy we brought in to rely less on lebron in the regular season hasn't moved the needle yet.

 

Austin Reaves left the chat...

 

Too many small guards on this teams: Monk, Rondo, Bradley, Nunn, Ellington just don't have a lot of height or bulk so that even the good defenders in the group or maybe just one good defender in Bradley is just going to be mismatch.

Throw in trick or treat Westbrook and it's causing Vogel headaches: you can try to get more spacing with Monk, Ellington, or even a forward in Melo but then your defense gets shot to pieces against a team with good size at the wings. This has been ongoing problem for the Lakers, Kuz's growth on defense helped but in the Lebron era teams with big wings like the 76er and now the Bulls have consistently given the Lakers defense problems.

The key to this seems to be Lebron (obviously) but Ariza and THT/Reaves being healthy and staying productive or reaching potential respectively as they are the 3 guys with the right makeup on offense and defense to be 2 way players against a team like the BUlls. A bit crazy that IMO that the key for the Lakers is a 20 year old 3rd year guard whose never been a starter and an undrafted rookie 23 yo

 

they sacrificed defense for shooting, and look how that's paying off

give me last year's team over this year's any day

 

Yeah last year’s team was definitely championship material; just roll out the same team and stay healthy. No time to rebuild/retool so often in LeBron’s last years.