5 Things: Old Bones

Even though it came at inopportune time, this was a loss in the making before the Utah game. 5 games in 7 days, all with travel, and a T’wolves team motivated by recent struggles and an October loss at Crypto and to right the ship after a recent 5 game losing streak. After carrying the team to victory the night before in Salt Lake City the superstar duo of James & Davis needed a team pick me up to make this one competitive. They didn’t get one.

1. 7-30, 0-6 from three. That was the combined scoring output from ADS and LBJ. They did go 6-8 from the stripe. Some of that was the stellar defense the Timberwolves deployed but just as much I blame weary legs, especially in LeBron’s case. None of his jump shots looked good, nothing is smooth and it’s affecting his passing game as he’s not getting to the angle but he makes the pass anyway because his brain is telling him to make the pass. In his last 6 games he’s averaging 5 TO’s/contest. He’s 0-19 on three pointers since Phoenix which has driven his 3pt FG% down to 34.5. AD isn’t as affected but you can tell he’s tyired because he’s been taking a lot more step back mid range jump shots on the road trip. He’s not getting any friendly whistles but you can’t let that dictate how you play. AD and the Lakers are at their best when he’s applying pressure in the paint and delivering body blows.
2. Dalton Knecht and his feast or famine stretch. The last 5 games has seen a lot of variance in Dalton’s contributions. He’s either over 40% from three or under/at 25% for a 32% average. Some of this is simply his home/road splits (50% three point shooter at home, 31.6% on the road) but I think some of it is also that he’s now on the scouting report and there’s a tactic being deployed. They’re forcing him to either shoot an extremely contested shot or put it on the deck and make a play. He’s not getting 4-5 clean catch and shoot attempts/night, he’s getting 2 or 3. Even those are coming with more pressure to perform now that he’s starting, facing the better defenders and coaches are forcing him to tweak his game. He needs to figure out a wrinkle to keep his hot shooting, our winning, and his ROY hopes going.
3. Could have seen more DLO. The last few games have seen Russell begin to emerge from his long summer’s nap and play better. He and Hachimura really carried the Lakers for long stretches to help keep the game in striking distance until midway through the 3rd when it was obvious they weren’t going to be getting any help from anyone else. I’m not saying another 4-5 minutes would have swung the game but when the end was still in question did we really need to see so much Vincent and/or Christie? For all the hype and words spouted over how JJ Reddick was going to help DLO unlock his best self I really haven’t even see it. Reddick has basically done the same thing Coach Ham did: express a modicum of preseason confidence, give him a nebulous role of spacer, and then bench him when he doesn’t carve out anything besides drifting around the three point line.
4. Stick a fork in Gabe Vincent. Dude is done. Followed his best Lakers game up with a really bad effort on both ends highlighted by several silly fouls. We need a lot more from Gabe Vincent and I don’t think he has it in him.
5. Every single Laker who could play did play and all but Cam Reddish (11 minutes) and Gabe Vincent (22 minutes of not doing much) had at least 1 turnover and every starter but DK had at least 2 highlighted by The King’s 6. We gave up 26 points off turnovers, a lot of those showing up in the Fastbreak points stat line (20). Some of this just sloppy play by the players, some of it is tired LBJ and some of it is we’re not really running plays anymore. Not like we did in the first couple weeks. Same goes for what defense we muster these days, the first 6 or so games saw a much more physical Lakers defense that had transition issues but still played hard. Those days are now gone, evidently, as we are soft all over.

Two more games to go on the road trip of which we are 2-3 and we’ve lost 3 of our last 10. The younger guys need to pick it up more than a little because I don’t think there’s another gear either AD or LBJ can find, they’re maxed out for the regular season. Staff needs to really re-think whatever defensive scheme they think we’re running: it isn’t working at all. Don’t change these two things and watch us continue our long, slow slide into mediocrity. Guys who think they deserve more of a role need to start proving it and not just by hitting a three every game or so, they need to defend and play at a hard, high level.