5 Things: Lakers routed by Spurs in final game at STAPLES

Ugly. Ain’t no other way to describe it. If excuses are your thing this is the Laker season for you. We got plenty to spare. The similarities to this season and last are striking both in their similarities and differences. The similarities stem from multiple injuries to key players, games missed for various reasons and a multitude of line up and rotation changes as a result. The difference is last season, without LeBron and Westbrook, that team bothered to show up to play. This team? Right now this team is just plain ugly.

1. The Good. LeBron and Russell look ever more comfortable together when sharing the court. That’s a really good thing going forward. Since I personally don’t see a Westbrook trade happening in-season it’s imperative to any title hopes we might still have, which are still valid hopes in my opinion, that LeBron and Russ co-exist on a high level. I’d say combining for 66 points, 16 rebounds, and 10 assists qualifies, even in a loss. Russ kept the turnovers to five which is my benchmark for both players to stay at or under. They put pressure on the defense and found the open man. It’s after the pass that generally resulted in futility. Also, the Lakers as a team have done a good job not wasting possessions. Westbrook and James are likely going to average around 10 turnovers/game as result of their usage and on-ball dominance. It’s great when the rest of the team doesn’t cough it up a lot.
2. The Bad. The three point shooting of this team is pretty awful in general. Sure, once and awhile player X catches fire and makes a bunch. Sometimes it’s Melo, other times it’s Wayne, or even THT. Rarely do we shoot well as a team and rarely do multiple guys make more than a couple. This is not a byproduct of personnel as the Lakers have now auditioned a “Who’s who?” of low-cost three point marksmen for a few seasons now. Since our cap is tied up in three players that isn’t likely to change, especially not midseason where the most we can expect is a THT or maybe Nunn trade or maybe seeing Jordan getting waived and picking up someone on the buyout market. That won’t be a Buddy or Seth level shooter, it’ll be another “I do one thing kinda OK” guy. The Lakers need to get back to what worked in the season they won the title and focus more on the defensive end by surrounding the stars with players who can truly play on both ends of the court. Defense wins championships. Three pointers do not. They help, sure, sometimes a lot in a game or three. They are a tool that has uses, like any offensive weapon. Sometimes shots fall, sometimes they don’t. But if you have a good defense it’s generally always there and keeps you in the game.
3. The Ugly. Nothing is more irksome to me than a bunch of millionaires half-assing their way through a game. A. Game. Show up and have some goldurn pride in yourself. I’m not even talking Laker pride. IT wants to stick in the league? Cool bro, prove you should stick. G-Leaguer wants to show they should play at the big boy level? Put on some big boy pants and play like a man who cares. What transpired last night is plain unacceptable and I don’t care one single iota that we had players out. The players that did play, other than Westbrook, LeBron and Dwight (of whom not much is asked to be honest) didn’t do squat. Not many of the Lakers showed me they deserve more of anything except time on the bench. To a man they defended poorly, missed open shots and generally looked like they would rather be doing something else.
4. Team Oxygen is back! Career high for Kata Bates-Diop of 30 points on a perfect 11-11 shooting. This from a dude who’s previous career high was…10 and averages 3.8 ppg. This was indicative of how poorly the Laker bench competed last night but also our total indifference to playing anything resembling defense. Had we managed to keep the lid on Diop like the rest of the league has figured how to do this might have actually been a ga-well, no actually lots of other Spurs had great nights against the matador Lakers. We did manage to keep Dejounte “I average a triple-double against LA” Murray in check. Whee.
5. No more excuses. It’s getting really, really sad how many excuses the Lakers now trot out in the post game interviews. AD is out? So sad, Kyrie has yet to suit up for the Nets and they’re leading the eastern conference. The Warriors have yet to see Klay play and are similarly challenging for the best record in the west. New roster? Aw gee, the Bulls had the second most roster turnover to us and are a top team in the association. Injuries? You poor dears, look at Miami who has lost Bam, Butler and seen Duncan Robinson totally regress and is 4th in the east and have won over 60% of their games. Excuses are like the hole where the poop falls out boys and I’ve had enough of yours. Throw your little pity party at home and show up to work for crying out loud. We all have been during the pandemic, your lofty job title of NBA player doesn’t exclude you from trying hard.

Last night marked the first time this season in which a streak of either kind has moved beyond the 3 game mark. We have yet to win more than 3 games in a row and are now facing the quite likely prospect of hitting a 5 game losing streak as early as tomorrow. While I do think the Lakers have the personnel in-house and on-team to win it all I also question their ability to grow together. I blame that on the front office and the coaching staff. We aren’t using the pieces we have very well and the front office has consistently taken the best tools away from it’s coach and drifted further and further away from the blueprint that won it all. So, if anyone truly needs to step up it’s Frank and his staff who really need to figure out how to unlock the mystery and secret of the three point shot. We have too many guys who were specifically brought in to use that tool for it to be as useless as it is for us. Rob will, likely, have to wait until the summer to redeem himself. Westbrook is nigh impossible to move midseason as he is not on Philly’s list of desired talent in a Ben Simmons trade and Russ’ deal becomes an expiring one once the season ends.

Last thing, if you’re having a sense of deja vu it’s understandable as the Spurs beat us at the Forum’s final game, too. Only difference was that was in the playoffs. The bright side was we subsequently went on to win the NBA Finals in year 1 of STAPLES so here’s hoping the name change has been weighing on the team and once they play in The Crypt the effort, heart and execution follow. If not this season is doomed.