5 Things: Lakers Run Out of Steam in Loss to Kings

It took a lot to even force OT, and that goes double when your coach is still working out who should play when and with whom (his words, paraphrased for brevity). Having defensive stalwart Jared Vanderbilt unavailable for most of the preseason has had a cascade effect of a dual nature: roles and minutes have opened up for some guys who might not have gotten the shot and the defense has looked God-awful most nights. So, even with DeAaron Fox going down and out for a short period of time in the 4th quarter with what ended up being a fairly serious ankle injury, the Lakers were unable to eke out a win in one of the tougher road venues in the Association. Still, a couple positives can yet be gleaned.

1. Wrong lineup to close the game. Not too sure what the coaching staff has seen from gabe Vincent that makes them so certain he should be on the floor for the closing moments…and in OT. Shooting 33.3% overall and 0-fer from three is the kind of offensive punch that means you’re a defensive ace in the hole. Unfortunately that’s not really true, at least not yet. It’s not that Vincent played badly, per se, it’s that Coach Ham broke one of, maybe the first, cardinal rule of basketball: stay with the hot hand. It looked like Rui Hachimura had found his groove a little bit in the 4th quarter, hit a three, hit a step back, was rebounding the ball well, not turning it over…and was yanked. In his time in the 4th and OT Vincent attempted (and missed) 1 total shot meaning the bulk of everything fell to LeBron, DLo, Prince and AD when it came to the offense. Would have liked to see a better defensive lineup and hachimura likely has plenty in the tank unlike…
2. Taurean Prince closing games is another question mark for me. His shot was falling early but he looked pretty done towards the end while racking up 41 minutes. His defense was certainly cooked by then. This is another one of those cascade effects of two factors: Reaves sucking big time and Vando being out. Coach Ham has to either put a lineup out there that tries to help space the floor or stop the other team from scoring and, unfortunately, closing lineups with Prince don’t honestly do either one. Teams will forever let Taurean Prince launch as many shots as he cares to take from three over letting AD and LeBron dominate the paint and they’ll do it with gladness in their hearts.
3. Speaking of dominating the paint… We didn’t. Here’s a Nostradamus for ya: we will lose every single game of the season if we’re not within +/- 5 points of the other team in paint points. Last night we lost that battle 56-44 (-12) and the incredible thing about that is we lost that battle while dominating them in fastbreak points (22-7). That tells you one thing: our half court defense was absolutely hot garbage last night. Not having Vando and Gabe Vincent not being quite the defensive pest has hurt us already this season. D-Lo may have made a small improvement in that area but the flip side of that is teams now hunt guys like Prince or Reaves.
4. Another curious choice regarding the rotation. Much has been made of Coach Ham’s predilection (addiction?) for trotting out 3 guard line ups. Sure enough during a disastrous stretch in the 4th we saw Reaves, Vincent and D-Lo out there, unable to rebound or stop guys from getting to the hoop. Domantas Sabonis fouled out with a few minutes to go in regulation and we responded by…staying with the same guys. No hachimura (+9 for the game in PER) and no Christian Wood (team leading +12). Wood had a perfect game going, too. No misses from any kind of shot you can take in an NBA game and 5 boards to boot. Yet, somehow, the two most effective bench players saw zero minutes down the stretch of the 4th quarter or OT? I’m not ready to proclaim any player other than LeBron and AD as “must play in crunch time (when actually playing)” but Wood and Hachimura had shown themselves to be at least as effective as Vincent was. Defensively I get it, but you’re telling me you can’t rotate guys by possession to make sure you score enough to win a basketball game? That after Fox was so very obviously limping you couldn’t go to a more physically punishing line up and force him to either play defense without fouling (finished the game 5 fouls) or get to the rim? Please…
5. The team went away from AD even when he cleared out and demanded the ball. AD had 5 fourth quarter shots (made 1, another reason a little more C-Wood would have made some sense given this was the first of a back-to-back) and but one shot and bucket in OT. They missed him in favor of three pointers multiple times in OT after Sabonis fouled out. We did not exploit the most obvious weakness in the Kings which was an injured point guard whom we didn’t put into pick and roll actions or a missing All Star center for AD to bully. This isn’t rocket science, the coach sometimes has to tell the players to exploit the obvious advantages. It’s hard to stomach winnable losses and, for me, this was one of those.

Back at it tonight at home against the unbeaten Orlando Magic. I’m sure we’ll see the minutes restriction roughly back in place and maybe even a more expanded role for Wood and/or Hayes to give AD more rest. It would help if Reaves could hit the broad side of the barn or Vincent to show the aggression he played with in Miami when they’re called upon.