Game Debrief: What Went Right And What Went Wrong?

Beal was +14 last night.

Like we always say in this forum:

 

The Good: AD was great again. Rui continues to play well, I love what JJ has him doing. Austin also played well, I love how aggressive he is now with those pull-up threes out of the high P&R.

The Bad: As many have said, LeBron was awful in this one. That’s particularly disappointing as Phoenix is pretty small and weak on the perimeter and Nurkic/Plumlee aren’t exactly elite rim protectors. I’m starting to get worried about Max, he just looks uncomfortable out there. Knecht also looked like a rookie for the first time.

I expected to lose tonight or Wednesday against the Cavs, so a close loss on the road to a pretty good Suns team isn’t a terrible outcome. That said, I think we saw some of the flaws of this team that limit our ceiling to very good team rather than championship team IMO. We need more size/athleticism in the backcourt to close games next to Austin. It would also really help if we could bring DLo off the bench, right now we have zero playmaking/scoring punch off the bench.

 

Refs really wanted to help out the Suns, but we had no answer for either KD or Booker.
Also, our defense became League worst in the second when AD sat.
Not a bad loss, but this team obviously needs a little improvement to its bench.

 

Harshin' my buzz now Lake-Show! Just not prepared: end of 1st Q 42-22, and then both teams played basically an even game. Two game losing streak.

What went Right: (crickets) (Bronny's first bucket!)
What went Wrong: Team's biorhythms off? Early start? Who knows. D-Lo begins season in a funk. Not funky, just a funk. Big diff.

I look at the Lakers and their defense: bad in the 1st Q, obviously. But only seven (7) fouls ALL GAME? Either we're 1.) a really clean team defending or 2.) our guys weren't aggressive on D. I think everyone reading this is going with #2, which is coincidentally what the Lakers looked like in the 1st Q.

Onward to BETTER games, guys. Fer crissakes!

 

Monday, LeBron looked old. Today the whole team looked old.

There was a lack of defensive aggression, including Ludabrow, who forgot to get bacon defense in one demoralizing play.

There were tons of turnovers. Austin was passing like Brick tonight which was really uncharacteristic of him. We just didn't protect the ball.

Because of the that they jumped out ahead and never showed any real fight.

This was s disappointing effort overall.

 

Felt they had the offense to make a legit comeback in the 3rd but man the defense was so bad.

Add on the TOs and the Cavs just coasted.once.they got the lead.

Biggest issue is the lack of an athletic guard defender and Phoenix and Cavs just killing the Cavs. Thrown in the lack of a brawler to throw at a frontrunner like Allen and the Cavs completely exploited the Lakers biggest weaknesses

 

Cavs are bigger, faster, and can shoot better.
Our defense was pathetic in the first quarter.

 

The JOB is DONE

 

Get smoked in the 1st Q 42-23

3 point shooting 6-28 21.4%

Ah, the Lakers we know and love are back

 

i expected two losses there, despite AD's proclamation. the critical thing is getting these next two. they look like gimmes but this is early season and our only visits to these two cities all year. can't take them lightly. how we perform in these two games is actually much more critical to me than how we did in the last two, which again, were just expected losses.

you have to stack wins where they're possible/likely. let's see if we're different than the last couple of years in this regard.

 

Murphy's law. Everything went bad. We only lost the 1st quarter but played catch-up since. Felt like Cleveland could go away whenever they wanted. Awful TOs, bad shooting and poor defense.

Hope we learn from this. I think these games can be useful to identify some issues in the team and draw up counters. JJ is the type of coach who should be on top of that. These speedy guards always kill us. And we get Ja next week, against another young athletic team like Cleveland. Looking forward to see the adjustments

Yeah absolutely. Cleveland are 5-0, winning comfortably. It was a tough match.
Next 2 are must-win games. These games are where you show your floor. Are we an established good team that punishes bad teams? If so, we're poised for a good season. If not, we're farther than we probably thought.

I'm trusting a blowout against Toronto as an answer to this bad game

 

Do the black olives look smaller or are they just moving away?

 

What went right .... not a whole lot. What went wrong .... Cleveland shooting like 80% it seemed from 3 the first quarter, AR, Rui and DLO scoring 7,8,10 respectively and not having our two helpful and taller guys off the injured list yet in Vando and Wood.

 

These dynamic guards like Fox and Mitchell are a huge problem for us, we have no one who can match up with them physically. And the Cavs are one of the few teams that can match our size in the front court.

Like everyone is saying, the next two need to be wins. The Raptors are 1-4 and will be missing Barnes. I’m more concerned about the Pistons, who are also 1-4 but have been competitive. Cade and Ivey were each over 20 points in their win yesterday over the Sixers, they can cause us problems.

 

There was zero defensive effort tonight. We just tried to outscore the other team, having more talent, and we managed to do just that.

 

We won!! Move on to the next game.

 

Great first quarter.
Awful rest of the game with pathetic defensive effort when they only had two shooters to guard.

 

Lakers beat Raptors in TOR, 131-125.

Up 26 in the 2nd. Had a feeling we'd cough up the lead and indeed: TOR cut it to 6. We hit a couple of FTs, then RUI hit BTB 3s to stave off the possible nightmare. Rui had a bad night shooting 3 for 12), but hit those dagger 3s when we absolutely needed 'em.

D-Lo looked okay. Only guy having trouble with his role in JJ"s offense.

AR's ankle twisted: he surprised me when he came out and played in the 2nd half. 0-6 from 3, but 20 points with 6 dimes and got in the paint, fouled, hit 12 of 14. This guy is essential for us. We need him healthy.

Unabrow: 38/11 with 3 steals and 2 blocks, is MVP so far this year. Old Man: 27/6/10. Unreal.

What went and goes wrong: lax defense. Team feels it can relax and let the other team back in after they get up 20, which works...sometimes. Me? I'm not a fan. When you're up 26 in the 2nd, I'd rather you end up winning by 30+ rather than 6, but that's just nervous me. Yea, you expend energy when maybe you don't absolutely have to at times, but you can work on things and get better. I wish the D wasn't so lax, but maybe it's just Nov 1st?

 

No one could do much with D*ck (LOL) and Barrett.