Game Debrief: What Went Right And What Went Wrong?

This was a good win against a team whose Super Bowl was this game - Clippers season is lost but this was a cup game against the lakers they came out to play particularly with Kawhii back.

Add in winning it without a key starter ayton.

Defense is a problem with the Rui lineups - all the advanced metrics were raising red flags on Rui's defense before Lebron came back and now with Lebron the defense without Ayton and Rui misplaced as a starter was really bad.

Same thing happpened with Utah - second half JJ goes with his preferred defense oriented crew with some combo of Laravia, Smart, and Gabe and the defense gets a lot better

 

Lakers finally pull away from Clips at the Crypt, 135-118 to go to 13-4. I thought Clips offense was impressive, better than what Reggie and the PBP guy on NBC thought. Were there breakdowns for both teams? Yea, but the game was pretty intense until a few mins into the 4th, when we got separation. And somehow kept it.

Luka, Bron and AR combined for 99 points. Lakers shot 57% for the game.

Doncic had 32 at the half and seemed a cinch to hit 50, but his 2nd half wasn't as fiery. Still, 43/9/13 ain't bad, eh?

Clips drop to 5-13. I thought they were better than that but I guess not. I agree that Lue doesn't use Zubac effectively. The Clips seem to have rancid team chemistry, and I wonder how much of that is just having Kawhi and Beardie on the same team...

NBC effed up at one point in the 3rd when they cut to a meaningless sign with the announcers still yapping, then to a commercial while the game was still going.

I thought the refs had a bad game.

Of the top 6 teams in the West right now, OKC has gone 9-1 over their last 10; Lakers/Nuggets/Rockets/Suns are 8-2 over their last 10 and the Spurs are 6-4.

Our defense needs tightening, that's for damned sure. Hurts to have Ayton out. Jaxson got 30 mins and held his own.

 

DA was surely missed

We did win the 3rd and 4th Q

Always nice to get a win especially against the Clips

 

“Had a bad game” is an understatement.
They awarded all of the Challenges to the Flippers, they ignored plays where our guys were literally being shoved off the floor, and missed that easy goaltending call on Zubac pining Austin’s layup. If I didn’t think that the NBA is completely unbiased and doesn’t allow cheating, I may think they wanted this to be a close game.
Speaking of that, I guarantee more than RoboticCornrows has a side deal based on their roster. How did they get all of these guys to come and play for one of the worst losers in Professional Sports AND still be under the apron?:
Beerdo
Robotic
Zu
Beal
Lopez
DJJ
Collins
Dunn
Bogdonovic
Batum
Paul

 

well, several of them are basically semi-retired (batum, paul, beal,lopez), so there's that.

harden took a small cut because there was no money in FA, iirc. kawhi is paid by a hot dog stand, so no biggie there. they got bogdanovic and collins in salary dump type trades for them and others. dunn was a nice reclamation project for them whom they signed before a market developed.

zu they stole from magic.

 

I get it, but Beal wasn’t semi-retired before his injury and he makes $53 million per.
Lopez makes sense because of his strange obsession with Disneyland.
I guess it’s just because they have a lot of names who were recently, to semi-recently big time pieces on other teams.
I also suppose that if you can’t retire with a good organization who wins, you choose the other one that provides you wi the the best year round weather?

 

These refs were so bad, at one point I think I had counted around 7 blown calls. Even Stu was pointing out the horrible calls. If we would have lost this game by 2 points, I would have been completely pissed off.

 

he was bought out and signed for the tpmle.

also, i expected he'd go for the tpmle, too, so imo, they probably overpaid a bit?

guessing paul would have come here if we offered him a serious role. batum's been their guy since they picked him off the scrap heap (and he looks pretty done to me).

anyway, i'm not positive what they're doing there. someone mentioned elsewhere that they're just keeping their books clean for 2027, but...decent chance none of the big names are FAs anyway. they don't have picks to move, so they can't use their expiring money to bring in much other than the same stuff they've been doing (bogdanovic types), and harden--despite having his best offensive season since was an mvp candidate--is 36.

the smart play would be to see if you can recover some draft assets by moving harden like, right now. but that would set up a full-on tank in a year where you don't control your pick...

as much as i trash lue, he's a solid coach, so him, harden, and a bunch of guys who will defend will win enough to avoid a top-5 pick going out, but i don't see a path to contention for them at all. i thought the preseason prognostications there were wild. bunch of folks thought they found a time machine or something.

 

Oh yeah, I completely forgot that Beal was bought out- that’s where the numbers weren’t Mathing for me.
Yeah, I’m enjoying their awful season nearly as much as our very good one.
They should have dumped RoboticCornrows a season ago due to him always being broken. For me, them holding onto this dream that he would somehow return to his Toronto form has been their biggest downfall.

 

i have questions about whether dumping him is impossible because he knows what they've done to keep him.

 

Yeah, I was thinking this too while typing that, but he would be outing himself as well- basically ensuring the end of his career, along with destroying any future financial opportunities based off of his NBA reputation.

 

it's like nuclear weapons, the threat of mutually assured destruction is what keeps people working together. lol. kinda.

 

Almost every single one of them. Late. And that 3 they took from AR is just.... holy hell.

 

YAH THAT WAS BAD!!

 

The 3 they wiped from AR, and the demonstrable goal tend that wasn't questioned: a 5 point switch that we all would be SCREAMING about had we lost this one in a close game. Also: Marcus, I thought, had position on Kawhi in that challenge we lost, but that's a more subtle level.

Missing Zu's goaltend was hellaciously bad.

At least they went back and saw - was it one of the Kobes? - didn't get that 3 off in time, so they took away 3 after a review in what was then a very close game.

 

But I thought they only took away 2, was it 3?

 

Another win so I can’t complain much. Defense left much to be desired in multiple stretches.

 

Please no more Maxi at PF experiments.

Hopefully Smart gets healthy even if only plays 20 mpgs he fixes a lot of lineup issues. Gabe and Jake are good roleplayers but Lakers need a reliable 2 ways guy when these gusy don't have it

 

Fun basketball for the regular season. Not so fun in the playoffs