Game Debrief: What Went Right And What Went Wrong?

The D'Angelo question wont be answered until the playoffs. He's always been a good regular season player. It's the playoffs were he comes up lacking.

The dilemma for the Lakers, is that we are trying to win a chip, and it takes 4 playoffs series wins to accomplish that. If he's not traded, we are still going to have to rely on him showing up for all 4 series. Will it happen? That's a gamble Rob is going to have to make...or not.

 

Worst team ever at guarding the three.
I’ve been complaining about this squad’s lack of defensive intensity for most of the season.
Only silver lining: Ham will be gone this summer.

 

who says this team even gets to playoffs?

 

What Went Wrong: Everything.

Worst loss of the season, considering everything. I'm not sure if I can hang with this team for much longer.

Aside from terrible defense against the 3 and Cam Thomas going out of his mind, we were up 13 after the first 15 mins, then decided to downshift in overall effort, and got blown out by a bad team that was 3-14 over their previous 17. It almost looked like the game plan was to not guard Claxton at one point. Also: let's not get back on D and let them get into a 2-on1 after we make a hoop. Why? I have no idea.

That. Was. Horrid. And I suspect it's getting close to boiling over in the locker room. Dejan Milojevic is dead and I don't feel too hot myself right now.

EDITED to add: what went RIGHT? My mute button's working. And I used it liberally when Doc started talking. Thank gawd for the mute button.

 

What went right: first quarter.

What went wrong: the other 3.

 

Trade must be coming, I pray.

 

I don't think we have a personnel problem. Our roster should be good enough to be in the top4 fight. We have 2 available stars, depth, between 9-11 real NBA players.
Our roster is way better than Utah, Pels or Mavs to say the least.
Ham must do a better job, simple as that

 

Well, I am all in on that too.

 

This makes sense to me, but it also feels like saying, sure I'm having all kinds of problems getting going in my life, but I'm good looking, I'm talented, I'm smart.

I just need another personality, is all. Or, ya know: asking the leopard to change his spots.

 

agree, but it's not ALL about ham. our stars don't lead, either.

lol. we live and die with lebron. and that's great! most of the time, you live! we're just dying currently.

 

Yea. Yep. In idle moments I've wondered how Lebron - literally a billionaire and already on the NBA Mt Rushmore, while he's still playing - warps the emotional dynamics of the team. When we had that ultra-short 2-game winning streak and were up by, like 9 with 4 minutes left, you see AD and Lebron and Ham laughing and smiling on the bench. I'm thinking, "This game isn't over yet!" Save the good vibes for after the horn sounding. Keep your game face on. Have no mercy and throttle the other team for 48 mins: that's always what I saw in the truly great teams. Stop with the glad-handing late in games, unless you're up by 25 with 3 mins left, then go ahead.

Here's the thing and let's face it: we've seen the smiles and laffs when we played like crap and lost the game too. Which seems worse to me. Way worse. I don't get it and I wonder about having some larger-than-life comic book hero billionaire on your own team, and how that creates a strange emotional dynamic on the team.

 

Yeah I get you, this isn't working for sure. I lost trust on Ham at this point, I don't think he's him. He can have success with us, as he has proven last year and this year, but I think it's more on LeBron than himself. And LeBron seems to want to share the burden at this point

They don't. I've always been vocal about that. But it is what it is, we live or die with LeBron and AD. We aren't trading them. So you need to move to the next solution.

I would rather fire Ham than doing another trade for the sake of it. We can bring Rozier, Trent, Bruce Brown, etc and the problems will be the same.

We really have a deep roster that can give us different lineups but Ham is failing in maximizing the squad. There's no chemistry, flow in our game. No consistency. That's on him

 

AR said he (Bron) is at the same demeanor at all times, so this is par for the course.

 

Bueno:
Offense

Malo:
Defense
Giving up more than 90 points to the worst offensive team for two seasons in a row is not good

I won’t be excited until this team starts getting serious about their defense and win eight or nine in a row.

 

Pig Headed Ham

 

The players from that team say this, most of the fans say this, but Ham is better at this and all hail Ham.

If he ends out losing his job, he will have no one to blame but himself. He simply HAS to try what worked at the end of last season. TRY IT!!!! God Dang it Hambone, just try it, show us!! If you are correct, you can prove it, if you aren't then you can concede it. Never trying it again is bizarre behavior.

 

Lakers without Lebron were within 2 of the Clips in the 4th until a series of questionable decisions on offense, misses at the rim and inability to capitalize on Clips turnovers put LAC on a 9-0 run. Not a bad effort considering. Good game. We lost. Kawhi was at one point unstoppable, hitting with guys in his jock. He started off 7 for 7 I think and ended up 11/16: 25/11/10.

Their 3-ball: 14 of 27. Imagine being able to hit the 3 like that.

I thought Vando's D was spectacular, but has there ever been a more inept offensive player under the rim? I freaking LOVE Vando, but man!

Hope Cam's okay. He looked good until he went down. Looked bad. I haven't seen the report yet.

What went Right: We played a team that's rollin' tough w/o Bron. Clips would push their lead to 13 and I expected it to get out of hand and balloon to 20 quickly, but it never did. Imagine having your Big go down for at least a month and you roll out Theis and Plumlee. Or off bench Instant Offense like Powell.

What went Wrong: Clips shot 59%. We lost and are under .500. Again. I think overall the team has enough talent to make the playoffs and win a round, maybe two. But the chemistry is wrong, and the effort has been wildly uneven. I don't think Ham has made enough of the right moves as a coach, and I confess I'm not crazy about him. I don't know what the players think. This is a weird team to watch this year.

Just a personal, snide comment to add: Clips have the small-market arena announcer who does: "PG-13 3-ball, corner pocket" BS like it's the Great Western Rodeo or some jit like that. Absolute cheese. Gawd I hope the Lakers never stoop that low. That kinda crap bugs me.

 

again, f*** philly for accepting garbage in return for harden