5 Things: Lakers scrubs beat Utah scrubs

The Lakers will take all the wins they can get while AD and LeBron get closer to returning. This is a quantity not quality state of affairs. In terms of how the team fared I would say they acquitted themselves well enough. It took a little luck, a lot of hard work and some clutch play but they got the job done. Still have some mountain left to climb, though.

1. Dennis Schroder doing a little bit of everything. There have been some real forgettable games from the Laker starting point guard since the superstar duo went out with injuries. This wasn’t one of them. Schroder scored, defended, assisted and pretty much made all the right plays in this gritty win. He was aggressive in terms of looking for his shot (24 attempts, 6 from three) if not incredibly accurate (only 11 made shots, 1 from three). But the fact that he was aggressive made it harder for Utah to set their defense to guard the team. Schroder applied that much pressure. The key for him is keeping his turnovers low and if that means a few less extraneous passes, so be it.
2. Andre’ Drummond playing big. It could be argued that we should have found a few more FGA for Dre’. He was a solid 10-15 and made 7-8 from the stripe. With no Gobert there was no Godzilla for Kong to fight and so the one man monster destroyed the interior defense that Utah could muster. He pulled down 8 rebounds, dished 3 assists and nabbed 2 steals with a block. The steals both resulted in highlight plays in which he took the ball the length of the court for easy scores. As LRob noted when we first acquired Drummond the man has extremely quick hands for a big man. The other thing he does well is play to his size, nothing more annoying than a true big man who can’t play big. Don’t think we’ll ever say that about Andre’. The man moves little dudes out of his way with legal moves and the only thing I wish he would do more of is finish strong. Fewer hookity-flip shots and more rim-rattling dunks.
3. Laker front court was aggressive on the offensive glass. Every front court starter had 2+ offensive rebounds and ‘Kieff had a whopping five which helped give us an 11-5 edge in that department. Morris and Drummond were more aggressive on offense than Kuzma was tonight (in the first half Utah did a solid job of forcing Kyle to pass which he did) but they all did solid work rebounding the ball and giving us second chance opportunities or limiting the Jazz to one.
4. Managing the turnovers. While it certainly started with Dennis Schroder the team in general did a solid job keeping the turnovers to a respectable level, especially against a tough, defensive minded team like Utah. 15 for the game is good, not great, but certainly an improvement over the 20+ turnover games we’d been having of late. Turnovers are a part of the game and this Laker team takes risks with downcourt passes and a lot of interior paint passes. Those have a high turnover potentiality but they’re also a part of what makes this team unique. If those passes find the mark they’re often going to result in open shots and easy buckets. The key is lowering the rate of failure.
5. The Standings. None of this would have mattered if we had been able to establish a larger cushion in regards to the play-in tournament. If we were still sitting 5 or 6 games out of a play in spot we could cough up more games down the stretch with nary a worry. As it is we’re still just 4 games up on the Mavs (who lost Friday, thanks Julius Randle and the Knickerbockers) so we need to pull a few more wins along with a rabbit or two out of the magic top hat. Sounds like Donovan Mitchell will be out a couple more games and it’s imperative that we capitalize on this opportunity. No tears are shed for teams with injured players, injuries are a part of sport. Just because a team has injuries doesn’t mean they’re going to lay down for you, the Lakers need to learn this once and for all, now, and seize this moment and beat Utah tomorrow night. If they get Conley, Gobert or Favors back it changes nothing. Play harder, compete better and go get that win.

We needed this game a lot more than the Jazz who, even if they fall behind Phoenix in the standings, are situated very well seeding-wise. One way or another, barring some sort of epic collapse they’re playing one of the tourney teams. Not too sure there will be much difference between who ends up being 7 and 8 after the play-in rounds. Could still be any one of 5 or so teams, hard to even come up with a game plan which is an odd advantage to being 3-6 in the seeding game. You know who you’re gonna play but the 1 and 2 seeds need to plan for several different scenarios. Just another odd thing about the NBA, pay it no mind.