Game Debrief: What Went Right And What Went Wrong?

Only two who can play defense.

 

f***

 

I'm glad AD is sitting to be honest. This game has an L written all over it. Hopefully Bron doesn't push it too hard. Time for DLo and Reaves to show out and the bench will have to produce today.
Koloko will see minutes too, which is nice.

Hoping for Max and Knecht to impress today, we need both to gain confidence

 

yeah, i had this one as a loss from day one, healthy or not. when rui was out, my choice was just sit AD.

let jj take a look at some different lineups whilst we lose a game we were going to lose anyway.

 

I get so pissed when casuals just murder us. We are without AD and Rui but they are without Bane and Smart too. And guys like Huff, Wells, Pippen Jr or LaRavia beat us. It makes me sick how nobodies just play their a** off against us while our superstar stands watching a guy drive to the basket

I was already expecting a L but it still makes me sick

 

A deserved loss today. Without AD and Rui would be tougher, but when DLo and Reaves play bad too, it's not easy. Reaves made his line better when the game was already lost.
Gabe, Knecht and Max continue to provide nothing. It's embarrassing at this point. I don't understand how playing with Bron, AD, Reaves and DLo, all good scorers and passers can't help you get points. Staff shares the blame on this one.

But it still baffles me that fringe NBA players always look good against us. We can't say our roster sucks when we played Memphis with 2 LA G-league players in their rotation. Plus guys like Wells, LaRavia or even Clarke and Aldama. Those are no different from Hayes, Reddish or Gabe. Wells is not better than Knecht.

I thought about it and my best answer is pressure. Kobe mentioned it a lot of times. Not everyone is a Laker player. I would say 90% of the NBA can't handle play in the Lakers. It's just too much pressure. All the media and the whole world watching every action you do. We need to invest highly in psychologists.
Pippen and Huff weren't rotation players here and were far from it, only sickos like me and Abeer were hyping Huff. Yet they get to another team and look like regular NBA players. It's much easier to play in Memphis.
We need to account to that when building a roster and find ways internally to work with players on that during the year. Any sport is at least 50% psychological and confidence/leading with anxiety is critical to any success in sports.

Even our current players, Knecht kills it in garbage time and can't hit a shot that matters. Just today Max scored 3 straight buckets when the game entered garbage time, when he's been trash the whole season. It's glaring.
We need to fix this, quickly.

 

Well...we ARE the Lakers dude. Teams get up to play us, circle our games on their calendar, it is what it is.

Roster wise..we ran the same team back from last season, minus Prince and adding Knecht. Did you really think that, it was mostly all about Prince and Ham?

We'll bounce back tho, it's a long season. AD looks sharp, Lebron ramps up as the season goes along. The other guys just need to find their way..we can start a win streak in our next game.

 

Lakers fall to .500 and 4-4 after losing in MEM 131-114 to end a 5-game road trip 1-4.

The good: Lebron and Ja trading "too small"s. Cam looked good.
The bad: Our total lack of depth. Yea, AD and Rui were out, but MEM had 2 Laker cast-offs who came off the bench and went 6 for 10 from 3. Minus Lebron our entire team shot 9 for 37 from 3.

Oh hell: who didn't know this was a loss going in?

I'm already jonesin' for a measly 3-game winning streak.

 

Lakers lose again

Out rebounded 50-37

Grizz shoot 50% from the 3 line

Koloko with 2 boards and 1 block, its a start

 

No chance without AD and Rui. We don't have the depth right now to withstand losing a single starter much less two.

Beyond that, the usual suspects are still stinking it up out there.

 

Yeah, the Lakers effect on opposition is widely known. I was more talking about the impact of playing in LA by our own players. Which is also a known thing, I just seem to forget sometimes (and the general opinion too).

It's not about the quality of the players. After leaving the Lakers, I'm pretty sure Vincent, Max or even Hayes will play better in other teams. DLo, Reaves and Rui too. They aren't this bad. But the inability to produce (from the bench guys) or be consistent (for the starters) is a huge problem that we have to find ways to address and mitigate for the long term. You can trade DLo or Rui for whoever you want, it's likely those new guys will s*** the bed too for playing in the purple and gold

 

Yeah there might be something to that. The night life in L.A., etc. What would be the solution for that?

 

We played great in 2020, but that was in Orlando. But we are loosing on the road

 

Watching the game - this was the decisive sequence. Lakers were totally in it, playing well, Lebron/Cam going, AR struggling with his 3 point shot but getting into midrange and this s*** happens from Dlo.

 

yeah, looks deserved to me. Lost his guy multiple times on D, bad decisions on O. Lazy passes. Meh.

 

You don't see s*** that bad in summer league from a 10th man from a DIII school you're not sure is real.

He should consider himself lucky that JJ didn't strangle him with an audio cable.

 

dslo was half assing everything there

 

Defense isn't his thing, he already told everyone that. Folks thought that was ok, as long as he's draining 3's.

 

he needs to be someone's spark off of the bench, but he's not really a starter. At least not for what we need. I just don't see it.