WMC 24-25: What To WMC About Now?

Dear God.... We can't have played an uglier quarter if we didn't step on the court. Green bastards getting physical and got us out of any rhythm. Ugly Ugly UGLY.

Oh well.... Lets see what heart we got in the 4th. Fk Boston, Period.

 

Nice little comeback, couldn’t do it without lebron though.

We lose to the c bags AND lebron is injured. Just a horrible night overall.

Hope it isn’t serious, but man he couldn’t even walk… i thought it was his acting at first.

 

Feels like the Lakers never field a healthy team the last few years. It's not even Lebron/AD, all the key roleplayers seem to go out.
I know injuries are part of the game but it's seems unusual not to have a stretch when your team is healthy for even a few months in a row

 

Silver do something ..It makes no sense
He was fine yesterday, But he missed Philadelphia game , what f***ing knee injury
Questionable for Monday
March 9, 2025
Tatum (knee) is questionable for Monday's game against Utah, Justin Turpin of WEEI.com reports.
Same for Horford
Iffy to face Utah
March 9, 2025
Horford (toe) is questionable for Monday's game against the Jazz, Justin Turpin of WEEI.com reports.

 

Que let's bash our medical / training staff in 5 ... 4 ... 3 .... 2 ...

BTW how bout at least a couple roses for them if not bouquet of flowers for having gotten Vando and Gabe back to full strength this year. Oh no I said THAT!!?? Here it comes .... me on the left.

 

lol, silver would have been much more upset had boston not loaded up to play last night on national tv.

i continue to find it hilarious that even the defending champs must throw the kitchen sink at a regular season home game against us down two starters.

in the playoffs, horford won't get to rest so much...

 

We've already seen what that looks like. We beat Denver 123-100. Lebron and Reaves played 33 mins, Luka 31. This was the box score:

Lebron 25/9/5/1/3 on 58%
Reaves 23/4/7/0/1 on 54%
Luka 32/10/7/4/1 on 46%
Rui 21/0/4/1/0 on 58%

Luka scored 16 points in the 1st quarter, Lebron scored 11 in the 2nd quarter, Reaves and Rui 12 and 10 in the 3rd. We play like that and we're winning 95% of the time.

 

There is no knee injury. Tatum played the whole second half and only rested 2.5 mins in the first half. He played almost 46 mins. Brown 42. This was the most important game left for them on the schedule.

 

Rested them before and after our game. AND played them virtually the entire game. This game mattered more to them, especially after we kicked their a** at Crypto.

I do like that we have more tape on them against us than they do on us. Even down KP, they're a close enough approximation with Horford. Whereas we're quite different without Jax and Rui AND I'm convinced JJ is holding out any actions involving both Luka and Bron until we get to the playoffs. I get the benefit of each getting to take plays off offensively when the other is running the action, but to avoid it to the degree we have makes me think he's up to something.

 

From coach postgame:

“I don’t think being shorthanded is an excuse for how we played basketball tonight”

but when I call out how bad they play in the gametime chat, one of you say I’m 12, and a basher. Righttttttt…

next set of games are bucks, nuggets, suns, spurs, nuggets, bucks…. Probably going to be our toughest stretch if the injuries continue. Hard to see this team playing above .500 in this stretch. They’re simply not playing well.

 

I know we’re still in the 3 seed, and have a 2 game losing streak.

But let me ask all you level-headed folks this, at what point exactly would you startttt to be concerned with the losses and/or way we’re playing? Once we get closer to play-in territory? If we still lose with a full squad?

To me, I’m not a huge fan of the “it’s just one game”

Every time we lose, “it’s just one game”. Do we just keep saying that after every loss?

Granted, we HAVE been winning, a lot, and surprising a lot of ppl along the way (myself included) with all the winning.

However, I’m curious, when do you yourself start to worry about the current state of affairs for the Lakers? I am NOT saying we’re going to lose 6 straight, but I’m also not saying we’re going to continue to play well (like 8 game winning streak well) against the likes of the bucks (2x next 2 weeks), nuggets (2x next 2 weeks), suns… but boy I’d love to eat crow if we stay above .500 for the next 6 games.

 

We have the best record in the NBA over the last 26 games (third of a season). I'm not sure, do fans expect to win every game? I agree that the C Bags game was close and we could have won it with some more healthy guys, same as tonight - and most likely we shouldn't have lost to Charlotte 100-97.

But if that was the case we'd be going 23-3 and thats almost a 90% win rate. That's on track for a 73 win season. It's just not realistic and that's my WMC. I dislike prisoner of the moment takes and a lack of rationality.

We've shown over a third of the season we're one of the best teams in the NBA. We need to get healthy; Lebron a top 5 player, Rui a great 4th option and a 15-20 pt scorer that can play backup C, DFS still a premier 3&D player, our only C in Hayes and a legitimate backup C in Kleber are all out. Once we get those 5 players back, Reaves gets his scoring touch back and Luka gets fully healthy and into his regular form - I think we'll be in the WCF at a minimum.

You can't ask for anything more.

 

Every game is just one game. If you are stressed off a couple games after we won 8 in a row then you are being overly dramatic to say the least. We have guys playing hurt, guys out and guys playing bigger roles than they should be. It happens to all teams.

So here's the deal.... Level headed people would break down the games without emotional manipulation that turns any observation into black/white or this/that type thinking. A couple losses doesn't mean we suck just like a couple wins don't mean we are unbeatable.

Todays game can be summed up to two major issues: 1 we didn't have our top scorer. 2 our 3rd best guy (AR) is still in a shooting slump after returning from injury. Are there more things that can be listed? yes. But we don't need them to logically look at this game. Austin is still not playing up to his level (and he almost had a triple-double). Luka is also still working his way up which has been obvious with how many turnovers he has out of the traps/doubles. Without Lebron we can not afford to have these two guys struggling.

Is that concerning? Yes. Why? Cause both their struggles can be point to their recovery from injury (Austin) and dealing with injury (Luka). Is it also not concerning? yes. Why? Because history of each player has shown they will play better. If they did we beat both Boston and Brooklyn. That is simple to see even if you wear pessimistic glasses like yourself.

We have spent years watching the Lakers have a team of lackluster effort on the court. This team is #2 in defense. DEFENSE. It is shocking that even pessimistic Lakers fans can complain about the effort and play of this team as a whole.

 

I like that ^svt and puffy.

I guess a huge part of me does expect greatness from this team especially when they’ve shown they can do it. Then when they don’t, all hell breaks loose.

Sometimes, the way they play, makes it seem as if they could win it all IF they really wanted to.

So when those inevitable games are unlike those amazing games, it’s mind-boggling bc of how far apart they look in wins and losses.

I also just hate losing. I hope all of you are not okay with losing either. It’s not a happy feeling, and I know I show it, A TON.

At the end of the day, I just want the Lakers to win no matter what, just like all of you.

 

Nice to have you posting more again Puffy, would love for some of the other old guys who I know are lurking to put their 2 cents in from time to time.

 

I don't mind to get 3 seed and play GSW .
From play in tournament we can get Phoenix, Clippers or Minnesota ,but it's only if Lakers will be injury free

 

Losing in the regular season doesn't bother me. For good or bad, this is the warmup for the real dance. Not to say the regular season isn't important, you have to mesh, figure out roles, hit your stride and come together to play cohesive winning basketball. Usually the best ranked top 5 offence/defence teams win. We'll be one of those teams even with an average start to the season.

We just need to get healthy and I think whether we're a 2nd or a 6th seed is irrelevant to our chances. We'll be beat because OKC/Nuggets/Cavs/Boston just played better than us for a full 7 game series, not because we had home court advantage or not.

 

I'm not blaming either of these losses on the refs, but seems like they've been extra s***ty lately. It's f***ing annoying!

Luka gets a terrible whistle. Terrible.

How is this not an and 1?



I'm used to Bron getting screwed over. But you can't screw over our 3 best players.


Austin needs to go on the Machinist diet that Christian Bale went on then he can be a SGA level foul merchant.

 

I have argued (especially in Football) that officiating doesn't have to be horrible all game to be costly at times in a game. Luka was hit more than a few times and didn't get the call and that "NO" And 1 was egregious as hell.

The play at the end of the game where BK got the offensive board after a critical miss had our guy literally tossed to the floor in front of the ref with no call. Put them up by 6 with less than a minute again. Costly.

Like you said... F'n annoying