Game Debrief: What Went Right And What Went Wrong?

his defense had been better (not good, but substantially better) the last couple years compared to the rest of his career. small sample, but that has regressed to the (bad) career mean. what's new is that his offense has fallen off a cliff.

so yeah, his defense isn't that big of an issue when his offense is at his normal levels. but it's not. statistically, it's actually worse than his defense so far this year. people claiming that this was a foreseeable roster issue are full of s***, sorry. suggesting he'd suddenly become both a bad offensive player and revert to full on defensive laziness in a contract year would have been a bad bet. you'd be rich now if you'd made it, but based on the available information, that would have been laughable. it's that surprising to me. if i were a reporter following the lakers, this is probably the only story i'd be chasing. well, this and what were you thinking on that christie extension.

 

Well..if we planned on upping AD's touches, featuring Austin more on offense, and starting Rui, who is an offensive minded player, someone was going to get less shots up, because it definitely wasn't going to be Lebron.

I suppose theoretically, that Russell could have been viewed, in a more of a catch and shoot, type of roll. That hasn't panned out yet. For all of these plays, I'm told that we run now, it doesn't look like many are ran, setting him up in that fashion.

The major flaw with this current core IMO, is that our starters at 1-3, all need to score, in order to be at their best. They are collectively soft, on perimeter defending, but getting buckets can offset that.

However our two best players, man the 4 and 5 slots, and they are also, the two best defenders on the starting unit. Two of these guys, should be coming off the bench IMO.

I'd start Reddish and Vanderbilt, even if they both only played 20-25m a game.

Alas..neither of them, seem to be able to stay healthy long, so we stick with what we have, which isn't going to work in the playoffs, or consistently against the better teams. They start having issues scoring in the 2nd halves, and their defense stays mediocre, but they are playing most of the minutes.

We need to change it up, but hell..availability is also a big part of the equation (Cam and Jared). Russell can shoot, he'll get on track with that eventually, but these problems will continue, because he's going to still disappear (offensively)at times (Austin and Rui too it seems).

If Lebron wasn't getting old, we might could scrape by, but he is. AD can't play all the defense, grab most of the boards, and score at a high clip, all season and in the playoffs.

If he did, he's definitely the MVP favorite.

 

Agree we need defense in the starting lineup. Cam or vando would suffice, imo. And dlo is who I’d move to 6th man—though reaves might do fine and handle it better mentally.

 

I'd leave Russell in the starting lineup, he's the most emotionally fragile of the three. He would also probably play a lot better, having two solid perimeter defenders flanking him, and he'd get more shots up, not having to split shots with Austin and Rui. His confidence flows as his offense goes.

 

Lakers come back home, face PHI, who were w/o Embiid and Maxey, hit 3s (16 for 35) and played good defense in the 1st and 3rd Qs, win 116-107.

All of our starters hit at least one 3 (incl. Reddish: 1-1), and went 14 for 24 from deep.

What went right: Redick is not Ham. D-Lo off the bench, which just made sense, and it worked. D-Lo played better, but made some bad plays, including that last...shot, was it? at the end of the 1st half. WTF was he trying to do? Anyway...

AR: 6 for 10 from deep. 7 dimes.
AD: 31/9 with 4 blocks, still looking like MVP after missing a game.
Lebron: triple-double21/12/13 with 3 blocks.
Lakers had a season-high 13 blocks. Nothing warms my heart like that..

What went wrong: Not a lot, but I have to say: Knecht just seems maybe a bit nervous. His shooting form looks good. We know he can hit those, and he will, but 0-5 from 3 and 1-8 overall. I still have confidence in him.

Good to get a win after a rough road trip.

Raptors in here Sunday night at 6:30.

 

Good win and we needed it

Knecht 1-8 from the field and 0-5 from the 3 line

Has to be mental with him as we saw a different player earlier

We need him to figure it out

Plenty of vets on the team that can encourage him and help his through this rough patch

 

Early returns on the starting lineup change were good. It would be massive for our team if Cam could be a viable two-way player at the 2, I’m not sure he can sustain it long term but I’d love to be wrong. I think DLo off the bench, alongside a Vando/Wood combo also coming off the bench, could bring the balance this team needs. Hopefully we get those two guys back soon.

 

i'm not super encouraged by the game. we should have smashed that team. we (lebron especially) played with our food in the first half. then we clamped down some to end the half and start the third, then let off the gas once again to make it to where we couldn't sit our stars. AD needs to rest as much as possible, and this was a game to do that.
while i like dlo off the bench, i still really don't like reaves as the primary ballhandler. as the game went on, philly really ratcheted up the perimeter pressure and we got taken out of sets and committed some turnovers because we didn't have one of our strongest ballhandlers (dlo or gabe) on the floor.

reddish was pretty invisible in all ways, but i guess that's better than being a visible minus like max has been.

was really depressing watching jhs come out for 90 seconds of garbage time while mccain was out there looking pretty impressive despite shooting 6-17.

i'm not down on knecht, but can a shooter finally shoot here? we have way more luck with guys who haven't been shooters (e.g., rui, avery bradley) exceeding expectations here than we have with guys who come in with a rep as shooters. buddy hield should thank god rob never landed him; his career would be over.

AD is still beasting and keeping us afloat almost by himself.

nice to see reaves hit some tough threes, but philly was really exposing his lack of athleticism on both ends. he competed, though.

liked to see dlo making an effort to go the basket and finish.

hayes did some good work blocking shots and grabbing contested rebounds.

 

We finally have a real coach.

 

Lakers beat TOR 123-103, goin' away, in LA, for their 2nd straight win. TOR took a 10 point lead around halfway through the 2nd Q, but the Lakers shifted from 4th into 5th with around 3 1/2 mins left in the 3rd Q, and took a 6 point lead into the 4th.

Dalton hit a 3 to give us the lead with 2:14 left in the 3rd. We are still waiting for Knecht-4's first 4-point play for the Lakers. It'll happen. I have March 4th vs. the Pelicans at Crypto in the pool.

AR had a good 2nd half: did he get 20+ of his 27 in the closing 24 mins?

Old Man with a triple double. It's kinda freakish, let's face it. The Germans have a word for something sorta eerie, uncanny and wonderful that's also scary: unheimlich. Bron be dat.

What Went Wrong:
AD having another game that keeps convincing a lot of us he's MVP, then he defends at the rim, blocks Poeltl's shot cleanly, but Jakob decided he'd jam a finger from his other hand right into AD's eye. AD's kind of a pretty guy, with big, beautiful eyes. All the better to poke you with, says Poeltl, the Austrian with long sausage-like fingers. AD's plantar fasciitis (condolences to anyone here who has this: it effing blows) said to AD's brain: join the club, man.

AD: 22/4/3 with 2 blocks in 26 mins against Poeltl, who's huge and battled AD well. But jabbing our MVP in the eye? Dude, Nicht mehr du Idiot!

I'm getting sick of guys hurting AD, but whattyagonnado?

MEM comin' in here WED night. They beat POR in POR by 45 today w/o the gun-packin', 360-spinning, Laker-killin' thug. Watch out!

 

Another positive was Jax stepping up, thought he had a pretty good game. Lebron had a mediocre to poor, for him, showing but Jax and AR really helped. I liked Reddish, if he can give us 10-12 and then DLO can give us 15 all while AR is giving us 20, our guard rotation is instantly better.

 

Yea, you're right: Jax had a good game. As if to say, "Yo, I'm AD's backup!". Three more games like that - like, the next 3 - Hayes, and I'm listening.

One game at a time, man. Play smart, but play on that trampoline too, Jax.

 

coach is hiding flaws, accentuating the positives with the players we have little by little.

I like.

 

Jeff Teague doesn’t like the Lakers

 

I agree with him

 

"They just need some more solid role players. Maybe some more veterans or I don't know. For now I don't like the Lakers."

Hey Jeff .... let me help you out here ..... you mean maybe with their entire roster "available" and 2 more of them in Jared Vanderbilt and Christian Wood available, that three months ago undoubtedly Pelinka and Redick were expecting to have been ready to go? Why does everyone just gloss over this with their hate of this short handed roster. Redick only plays nine anyway, and that would allow him 10 with the addition of 2 more non scrubs, actual NBA players with much needed skills to incorporate into his scheming. He even mentioned the zone defense he planned to mix in with Vando being a key part of that, and you think he and Rob weren't looking forward to him, rather than Ham, utilizing Wood to get him back up to his norm of NBA level play?

 

more veterans? does he mean really old players? because a good chunk of the rotation is veterans. knecht is the only really inexperienced guy playing at all.

yes, we need one more player who's good enough to be in most teams' top 7, and we need to do that without giving up one of our top 6. not sure if it's possible, but it's what would move us up a tier.