5 Things: Lakers Go Up 2-1

The Lakers returned to Crypto on Saturday after a major league drubbing in game 2 at Chase Center. The Warriors have won everywhere in every scenario, riding a stellar game of shooting from everyone, and boasting a healthy roster. The game was over by halftime. The Lakers defense and style of play, especially at home, was just too much for the Warriors defense to overcome. What adjustment they can make is the question now.

1. Get up for game 3. There can be no sleepwalking, there can be no taking a quarter or a half off. We must come with another elite effort and keep on winning at home. The Lakers need to get excellent and stay excellent at 2 things: winning a game on the road in the playoffs and defending home court. To date the Lakers have done both and they need to maintain that level of focus and execution. The body will not be ready, you will be feeling fatigue. That’s where the mind comes into it and the Lakers need to be mentally sharp and rise to the challenge of going up 3-1.
2. Lonnie Walker’s big game. I’m not talking about his stat line, especially pre-garbage time, I’m talking about his appearance in the first half when he came in when Troy Brown normally does. He didn’t try and light it up, he didn’t force his shot, and he didn’t loaf on D. he did his job, he’s been an incredible professional (especially since the trade deadline when his minutes all but evaporated) and he has stayed ready and in sync with what the team is doing. He may not be a Laker next season but I can honestly say I am now a big Lonnie Walker the Fourth fan. I don’t know what role he has consistently on this team, especially during the playoffs, but the level of maturity and team before me LW4 has shown is really impressive.
3. LeBron taking less is more. 2-4 from three and he didn’t shoot the ball once in the first quarter, or the first 4 minutes of the second? That should be a recipe for Lakers disaster but it wasn’t. It gave D-Lo the room to start the game like a star exploding. It gave the Warriors a defensive problem because they know he can’t play decoy the whole game so they still had to have at least a body leaning his way, often two in the vicinity. It also saved him for an incredible stretch in the 2nd and 3rd quarters where he orchestrated the demise of Golden State in game 3 with an efficiency we haven’t really seen from him the playoffs until Saturday night.
4. AD wakes up. I know what he’s been saying, that he doesn’t play any differently from one game to another. The eye-test tells a different tale. More FGA’s in the paint than from outside. More engaged on D. A better player. Maybe it took him a film session to see how they switched up their coverage? Maybe he ate a better breakfast? Who knows and who cares, we just need that version of AD tonight…and as I’ve said a grip of times…in every game going forward.
5. Pound the paint and don’t stop doing it. Every settle-for jumper, every early shot clock three, every shot that isn’t a kick-out off a drive is a bad shot for this Laker squad in the playoffs. I accept a few D-Lo/LeBron heat checks from three. Other than that, drive it, relentlessly, into the defense and force the action at the rim and in the paint. It’s why we have such a wide free throw discrepancy, because we’re playing with power and strength. Golden State is, by far, the prettier team. But they don’t have an answer for AD in the paint altering shots and accumulating blocks. They don’t have an answer for our ability to at least show at the three point line and recover back into the paint. A lot of that is AD’s elite defense but there’s a lot of support coming from his teammates in the form of on-point backside rotations on the baseline and staying on guys in the corners. It all works only if it’s working together. that’s what was so impressive to me about LW4 coming in and executing the defensive game plan as if he had been running with the starters the whole time.

Another must-win game for a team playing must-win games for the last 2 months. Fire forges steel. The Lakers have been in the fire for a good while now and we see the team has forged into something that has special potential. Need to back the potential up with results and those happen on the court. Go get another one tonight. Go Lakers.