5 Things: Lakers Top Rockets as the King Turns Back the Clock

That was fun. Maybe a little closer than some fans might have been comfortable with but this ain’t last season’s Rocket’s team. While the record may not show it this team is trying to compete and has the vets to help them do so. So, while not an elite test, this kind of team (younger, faster, looking to push rather than play in the half court) has given us problems in the last couple years and Houston’s time, like the Thunder, is closer than some GMs would like. So in a game where AD fouled out, we couldn’t hit a three to save our lives, the Lakers once again turned to the oldest player in the Association to get them over the finish line.

1. LeBron James, a one man desperado. I’m honestly just trying to enjoy watching leBron do his think at 38 going on 39 in year 21. He just passed Kobe Bryant on the all-time Laker list of 30+ point games (237, Kobe sitting proud at 236 and that was definitely cut short by injury the last few seasons but there it is) which in and of itself is incredible. LeBron has been here 6 seasons and played in 291 games. That means there are but 51 games i which LeBron didn’t score 30+ points. If that isn’t worthy of amazement you might just be dead inside. Also, what minutes restriction? That last one, while seemingly not an issue in November, feels like one I’d like to see Coach Ham strive harder to achieve as the season wears on and we get bodies back. Another 40 minute affair for James and that will add up over time. The team needs to do better by it’s leader.
2. AD vs. Sengun like Godzilla vs. Kong. He held his own against Alperen Sengun but he didn’t seem to faze the young up and coming big man on the other end, either as Davis ended up fouling out against the big man with the herky jerky game.. Call it a Clash of the Titans but this is likely going to be an issue that continues to show itself throughout the season as the NBA is now increasingly populated by talented, multi-dimensional big men. AD looked a step slow against his main opponent all night long and that resulted in him fouling out in a game where the lakers only sent Houston to the line 10 times and went there themselves 29 (the difference in the game, by the way but more on that in a second). It’s not that AD had a bad game, he didn’t, but if he wants that MVP/DPOY crown he needs to try and dominate these marquee matchups a little more, gimpy hip and all. If that’s not important to him, cool,, we got the win but I believe (sic: hope) he wants to shed some of the labels he’s garnered over the last few seasons in purple and gold.
3. Malik Beasleyitis. Also know as Wesley Matthewsitis, Reggie Bullockitis, Danny Greenitis and so on. The Los Angeles Lakers, where three point specialists go to lose money. Where the skill seems to whitcher and die on the vine before our very eyes. Taurean Prince is the latest victim of this deadly, franchise-specific disease and this season’s variant is especially deadly. We are abysmally bad at shooting the three this season and it would be far worse without the lone bright spot game in which we tied the franchise record in made threes (also our only blow-out win). I’ve long contended that this is an issue that starts with the inherent philosophies of the Laker organization. We don’t bring in coaches who fully embrace the modern game, they always have a foot in the old school door, or both feet and just pay the modern game lip service (see Scott, Byron). We have a historic list of big men, we do not have a historic list of ex[pet marksmen. All of our best players thrived at either post play (Wilt, Kareem and Shaq), driving the ball in transition and finishing at the rim (Magic, Worthy, Kobe, and of course LeBron) or the midrange (Kobe, Pau, LeBron and also Kareem who hit the pick and pop 20 footer as easily as his skyhook). The outside shooter list is short: Jerry West. Kinda ends there. Sure we had Nick the Quick and Eddie Jones but those teams didn’t win banners. Fun? Sure, but not legendary. This issue permeates today, we don’t enable good shooters to be the best version of themselves. We tell them to stand around and wait for LeBron or AD to get into trouble with the shot clock and bail them out from wherever they happen to be standing. We don’t run plays for them, we don’t set them up to shoot their shot. We hope a lot that whatever shot they get goes in. It’s not working and won’t until the issue of how the organization values this skill set changes.
4. Cam Reddish defensive ace?! If these kind of games keep happening AD won’t be the only Laker in the DPOY convo and Cam could be in line for Most Improved, as well. In his last 5 games (all starts) he’s had 3,3,5,0,3 steals respectively. The 0 was against Memphis and he only played 25 minutes. In preseason I didn’t see the fit but he was one of the first players off the bench once the games started and has supplanted Austin Reaves as a starter with no end to that in sight based solely on Cam’s play. Where Wood found a spotlight early and seemed to quickly wilt away the more Cam is featured the better he plays on defense. He’s disrupting the half court sets by attacking passing lanes and applying stout on-ball defense. This is what probably every coach he’s ever played for wished he had done in previous stops so credit the Lakers and their development team for unlocking this version. While still a small sample size and most of the games being against a lower tier teams it’s worth noting how active and engaged on that end of the floor Cam has been. His scoring has come and gone which has been the status quo of every Laker not named LeBron James so it’s actually been quite essential that he step it up on defense and that’s exactly what he’s done.
5. A tried and true recipe for this Lakers team. Points in the paint and using that to help create a free throw differential that offsets our woeful outside shooting. It’s why the one game we actually made threes was such a route from beginning to end. Imagining how this team could play if it made just 1/3 of it’s outside shots is a fun exercise but so far one existing solely in the realm of imagination. Cause we don’t hit even 30% of our threes so far, it’s so far under what would seem acceptable as to be funny. Except this isn’t a night at The Improv, it’s grown athletes trying to make a shot from 28 feet out or so. 21 feet in the case of Reaves game clinching three (free throws sealed it, fittingly). While I will never be a full-throated proponent of the “three is everything” aspect of the game it feels like the Lakers are trying to build something with some missing tools other teams possess. Making threes opens a few doors for this team the first of which is reducing the wear and tear on LeBron James. The second is making our defense better since missed threes have been a boon to our opponents transition game, for the most part. Thirdly is how it would enable our centers to better function in the post and paint. Our current modus operandi feels like it’s shelf life expires around the playoffs. Free throws dry up, they don’t increase in a 7 game series. You HAVE to make shots in the playoffs, refs won’t bail you out and we saw that last season under a hail of Denver threes we couldn’t match with our style of play. So while it’s fun, in a painful way, to watch the Lakers body blow their way through the regular season even I have my doubts that this style is sustainable in a 7 game series against any kind of good team. Somebody, and it would be best if it ended up being more than one, needs to get buckets from beyond the stripe more reliably or we’re going to need our defense to find a whole other gear I’ve never seen before to keep games close enough for body blows to be effective. We will lose the war of attrition otherwise.

The games just keep on-a-comin and so we’ll see the Lakers hosting Utah tomorrow night in what should actually be a decent test. With Vincent continuing his kendrick Nunn redux vibe, vando still probably a week or more away and the scary fact that those two players basically represent the cavalry we need some guys to find more consistency in their roles. Once we get through the last couple games on this homestand stretch we are on the road for good long while. It’d be nice to see some positive patterns evolving by then, beyond the silver lining of our vet minimum players.