Optimism Discussion: The Laker's Sky Is Not Falling

home court advantage first round bayyyybeeeee!!!!

 

Optimistic that Dwight will indeed make a difference in with Big three and Russ playing better and Ellington (guessing) (his effort ratcheted up on defense) and moar Reaves.

 

still optimistic that only utah, gs, and phx have separated themselves. we've caught a break that no other random teams got hot early and got a big lead on us.

still really mad that we have 4 awful, inexplicable losses, else we'd be ahead of utah.

anyway, optimism: we should be in 12th with how things have gone.

 

hopefully we don't completely relax as a team like we did the last time he came back.

 

He can’t relax for sure if he wants to win this game. No one else to guard Paula with any size. Unless like they have already done, throw Reaves in there to try his luck with the best perimeter scorer. Maybe he could bother him in stretches as LeBron rests. Does AD get duty on him at times besides switches? Leave a different Big for LeBron? THT too short but hasn’t stopped Frank in past from over matching him height wise.

 

Yep. THT can look forward to it as well. Though if they were smart like us would have to be LeBron and Reaves (more trial by fire ... this time against a bigger, more athletic, really skilled guy).

 

We have one of the best benches in the league from a PPG standpoint-- thank Melo and Monk.

Was listening to a Lakers podcast (not sure if it was recorded late Wed or Thurs) but when it was released we had a top 5 bench. Since we haven't played much this week we dropped to 7th with 38.9 PPG (.8 PPG separates 7th from 2nd).

 

I’m optimistic … for my mental health.

A season record 3 days in a row without a Laker game?! I’m overjoyed I get such a long break from the misery that is watching this Lakers team!

 

-AD was active in the 4th
-Monk was the best Laker on the floor in the 4th
- Melo was big time and with rest, came to play
-Russ did a good job setting AD up for success

That's all I've got.

 

Honestly not a bad game.
Weird flip from the earlier in the season when Lakers looked like the worse team, it seemed like they had momentum but some poor officiating, AD FTs and TOs went the wrong way

 

YAY!!!

 

Big 3 got it done


We actually committed to playing defense in the 3rd and on the offensive end, Russ was a force. That 3rd won us this game.

 

The synergy is slowly developing. They NEED to figure it out and everything will fall into place

 

To me, this is the best win of the season so far. And yea, I'm an olde Laker fan who fervently hates the C Bags, so that biases me a bit. But still:
our guys actually played some D, which set up their offensive running game. They also shot well, and I thought the C Bags played some pretty tight D most of the game.

The 3rd Q had been a nightmare Q for us earlier in the season; tonight the 3rd was when we blew past 'em to go up 20. Face it: we all wanted them to stretch it to 30-35, but feared we'd let the Cs cut it to single digits. We almost did let them get it to 8 or 9, but we didn't. We. Did. Not!

Still: TONS of room for improvement (too many TOs, put BOS on the line too much), but man...I'm basking in the glow of a win like that. Maybe we CAN make the playoffs after all! All in all: a thrill for an ancient Laker fan like myself.

Pearl Harbor Day, and Larry Bird's b-day, to boot.