Game Debrief: What Went Right And What Went Wrong?

this one was a loss when the schedule was announced. in that regard, flush and move on.

but the issues are there and have been there. i'm kind of siding with the bloggers (and i guess, myself from early in the season)--you can't just move dlo and not bring back a ballhandling/scoring threat. now we have two holes to plug when we just strengthened a position that wasn't that weak with DFS, imo. and we don't really have the assets to plug both holes effectively.

whatever, we were a play-in team before the season, and we're a play-in team now. unless lebron or AD misses significant time, in which case we're a lotto team.

it is sort of darkly comical that we've switched from being a really bad defensive team to a really bad offensive team during the course of half a season.

 

Yeah. We weren’t keeping Zubac either way.

but also, that trade was like 6 years ago. We’ve had time to address that need and just haven’t.

 

THIS is the thing that’s inexcusable for me. I don’t understand our FO watching how important JaVale and Dwight were during our last run couldn’t see that we have needed this kind of help again.
Third string bigs aren’t going to cut it.

 

Losing to clipps is expected while also being a "contender"?

 

when we won the ring, they beat us all the time, too!

but no, this isn't the same.

 

So expected loses while supposedly try to be contenders is ok now? So just dont expect anything from this team?

 

Who here is really calling this team a contender? Even the biggest homers know we’re a trade or 2 away.

But to your point, back when Kobe & Pau were winning rings, the Charlotte Bobcats were always a scheduled loss. It happens. This team hasn’t done enough to earn that get out of jail pass, but we all know they’re not winning a ring as currently constructed.

 

Like you would anyway? Why ask …. what are you looking for …. permission to be gloomy?

 

Expected lossing is one of the saddest excuse ive seen...the pau/kobe excuse for cha loss is fair but this team on the other hand, nah, its not like clipps are okc, hou, den lvl either

 

Right and this is why I have this problem, with Rob's vision for the team. It seems to me, that Pelinka decided after the bubble, that the teams in the West, would be following the Golden State/Houston model of playing small ball. So he decided to stack his rosters in order to combat that style of play. Hence AD at 5, minimize the back up bigs positions, and grab as many guards and fowards as possible. That model is outdated, and he needs to adjust his thinking in order to compensate for that. Yet for some reason, he's still clinging to the same concept.

Look.. I get the idea, we beat 3 small ball teams to win the chip. Portland, Houston and Miami. On our WCF run, we beat two, Golden State and Memphis. However Denver exposed the fact, that everyone wasn't committed to small ball.

They went big, Dallas added two bigs and went to the Finals. Minn knocked off Denver deploying two bigs. Okc is the best team in the West now, with Hartenstien and Holmgren. Memphis added Edey, Denver is looking for another big..things have changed.

We got to get away from this idea, that vet minimum bigs are sufficient, because we have Anthony Davis. Everyone is spending real money or draft assets on bigs, except the Los Angeles Lakers. What did we do? We traded our biggest tradable contract for Dorian Finney-Smith. Now we are reluctant to move Rui for a big, so we go get another dude on a two way contract. Meanwhile..a lot of people around here, are still talking about this nonsense of chasing Bruce Brown. That s*** is not going to work.

 

We got Marc Gasol and Harrell after the title year

 

Yeah...A washed up dude at 5, and a 6'7 SF/PF. Two terrible ideas. Both have been out the league for a couple of years now.

 

Harrell SF? Lol what are you talking about?

You know who are out of the league too? Dwight and McGee

 

that's just slick's weird crusade. gasol was an upgrade on either guy, and harrell was good as a backup center that year and every year before.

our issues in 2021 were injuries, else we had a great shot at repeating.

it was the russ trade that ended things. we went away from centers then because while i think you can win with two non-shooters in the lineup, you can't with three. russ at pg is basically like having another center out there, so we pivoted to AD at center exclusively. after we dumped russ, we still didn't go back for reasons i don't understand.

 

Yeah agree with everything. Harrell was the 6MOTY the year prior. Gasol was an absurd get that summer, awesome moves.

 

Allegedly with the plan to bring Dwight back. But he got antsy really quick and signed with another team. That should have been handled better. And it was all looking good early before everything was even close to jelling until the injuries all started to hit …. including to Marc after AD went down.

 

i can agree here. i can't think of another team that hasn't committed more than vet min to two centers. actually, i can--the pelicans. who suck. almost every other team in the league has at least two guys who play center minutes that are paid over the vet min (many well over that).

we've done nothing but vet mins for three full years.

 

Washington Wiz, the only team in the Assn to not yet have 10 wins (they have 6), came into Crypto to face the Lakers. Leaving the Crypt, the Wizards still have 6 wins, as Lakers win 111-88, and my first response to the game was: at least it wasn't close. We were up 10 at the half, 12 after 3, then held them to 11 points in the 4th.

Holding an NBA team to 88 friggin' RAWKS, man! But this: * reminds us: it was against the Washington Gener...uhh...Wizards.

Still glad we won, 'cuz the C-Bags are coming into town on Thur night and if they look like they looked in San Francisco, we're in for a tough night. We'll see.

AR's shooting % is much lower than we expected, and he was 4 for 15 tonight, but 16/8, and a work in progress at the 1-2. Still one of my favorite players to watch in all of the NBA.

AD played 7 footer Alexander Sarr with far more physicality than he played Zubac: AD: 29/16/5 with 4 blocks in 32 mins. Zu is also 7'0" but carries about 40 pounds more, which I think explains a lot, although how do we account for how Sabonis and AD match up? But I digress...

Bron: yet another trip-dub: 21/10/13

Finney-Smith looked like an All-Star off the bench: strong D, but also 6 of 8 from the field and 16 points in 22 mins.

We shot 48%; Wiz 36%.

Memorable play: AR lobs to Bron, who posterizes 6'11" Valunciunas.

This incarnation of the Lakers: JJ told the truth the other day: our current roster has zero room for error.

Here's what I said today at my meeting with the press, in my mind: JJ's right, and furthermore: if we play good offense, our defense will suck. If we play good defense, our offense will be off. I don't think we've played a really good all-around game against a good team this year. Dec 15th: MEM came in and we beat 'em 116-110. That's as close as it gets to what I'm thinking about: strong play on both ends against a good team.

Take deep breaths and prepare for the damned C-Bags on Thur night. I hope we win. I hope we at least give them a good game. I hope we don't get blown out by halftime. I hope we win. It would be super-azzed-flippin cool if we won.

 

The resting guys before/ after the game against us has gotten so absurd at this point...