Game Debrief: What Went Right And What Went Wrong?

DFS has been wildly inconsistent and that’s being kind. He’s been mostly bad and the rare night he actually hits some shots like against Houston. Luka was bad tonight, but he’s great most nights so I’m not too worried about him. DFS and Vincent are getting open looks consistently and were both awful tonight.

 

Offense was absolutely horrifying in the first half
Defensive rebounding was horrific all game. Warriors offense and defense thrived because of the stupid offensive boards.

Lebron was great
AR sucked in the first half but was great in the second
Rui man he's invaluable the only non star who is threat on offense
If DFS and Gabe can't hit 3s offense is trash basically unless you play the big 3 with Rui. No other lineup worked

Luka needs to show up. Where has that Denver Luka gone?

 

Luka: 0 for 6 from 3, 6/17 overall, 19 points in 38 mins. He's been pretty lousy lately. WTactuaF???

First time he hasn't hit a 3 in a game since April 7th, 2023. Picked a great time to just blow, Hookah.

Brandin Podziemski: 8 for 10 from 3, 10 for 17 overall, 28 points in 36 mins.

Lakers looked like they're simply not as good as GSW in losing, 123-116.

After D F-S and Gabe made HOU pay by hitting 3s, tonight they were 1 for 10 from 3. Gonna have to show up in the playoffs guys, or we're out in the first round.

I hate GSW. This one really effing sucked. Imma need to hit my stash after that. Smoke that game right outta my hair.

Dan Woike has Luka saying, "That performance from me is unacceptable."

No! Really?
https://x.com/DanWoikeSports/status/1908026310045409333

 

Great way to take care of business. PO means tight rotations and all... but when your bench gives you 7 points in 75mins. of a action, you're screwed. I knew it

 

Hayes was unplayable apparently, and we had nobody else to turn to. Basically 4 players for us scored. Against good teams, we will get exposed.

We are who we are. Everything will have to fall our way to make noise in the playoffs.

 

3 line stats

Luka 0-6

Gabe 1-5

DFS 0-5

Big Oof

 

in theory, we're definitely better than gs. but they've played better for a month, and they looked superior last night from the opening jump.

i turned it off later in the second quarter when it was clear to me we just didn't have it (especially luka, but everyone looked bad at that point, imo). lebron and austin must have picked it up substantially in the second half, but so did curry (this is mostly why i turned it off--they were up with him doing nothing).

i think in a seven-game series, luka and lebron punish gs for defending them how they did last night, forcing them into defensive schemes they'd prefer to avoid. but that didn't happen last night.

 

LeBron and AR finished really strong but the team just isn’t good enough to overcome lackluster starts and bad games from Luka.

We’ve regressed and have a very limited window to get back right. A good start would be to stop playing down to teams we should beat.

 

I'm not entirely confident if we get the Warriors in the first round, they are playing extremely hard and locked in defense.

 

I'm not ready to call the Warriors a bad matchup for us yet, but we're no longer a bad matchup for them like we were with AD.

 

That part, AD is a small ball killer, he is an All NBA caliber player. We are built differently now, we have to make some adjustments for teams like Golden State. Small ball is their thing, and it's shouldn't be a surprise, that they are still good at it. I still think we'd win a 7 game series against them, but it would be tougher series, than some folks think.

 

the two chicago losses were just terrible. especially the blowout at home. just unserious basketball. you don't do that because you might have podziemski be touched by god in another game, and you'd rather have banked the gimmes.

whatever. tbh, gs, minny, and the clippers have been on fire, and we're likely to draw one of them (or denver) in the first round. so it's going to be rough no matter what. i'd feel better if we weren't backsliding into the playoffs, though.

 

You know what would help... that cripple Williams. At least play Knecht ffs, when everyone is bricking shots left and right (or is afraid to take them at all). I love JJ, he exceeded all my expectations but sometimes i just want to punch him.

 

I don't think JJ plans on playing Dalton in the playoffs.

 

If you look at that second quarter they need someone like Jemison to clean up the glass.
I'm not sure what to make of this team sometimes - they gang rebounded like crazy against a tough, physical, and athletic houston team but then totally whimpered out against the Warriors.

The defense was not bad! They just gave up so many freaking second chance points

 

Thought it was odd that our shots looked short. Sign of legs not being there. I thought the two days off would've helped, but maybe the accumulative exhaustion has mounted too much.

The bad
- Luka was terrible. Worst game as a Laker.
-Doe Doe, 'Do, Gabe, Goodwin and Jax combined for 9 points.
-Defense couldn't get needed stops, although it got better late

The good
- best Bron has looked since coming back.
-AR was a cold blooded sniper, going shot for shot in the waning minutes
-Rui looked good, has shown growth in that matchup over the years
- we got another fun Bron vs Curry down the stretch
- it took Podz having the game of his life, Dray hitting 3s... what?!, Luka doing something he hasn't done in 2 years, our supporting cast taking the night off and some really questionable officiating AND we still had a decent chance until the final 90 seconds - 2 minutes.

 

All good points and while I was whining in my above post I was thinking along these lines, but the game's end was recent and I was really angry and frustrated with Luka's crap game. I do think we beat GSW in a series.

 

Lose twice to OKC and Lakers are in the play in.