5 Things: Texas Two-Step to nowhere

The Lakers dropped the second game of a back-to-back against the surging Dallas Mavericks. While it may be true that the Mavs have more to play for the Lakers aren’t necessarily sitting pretty in terms of playoff seeding right now. As they tumble further and further down with not even the return of All Star and NBA champion Anthony Davis stemming the tide one wonders what the Lakers can do to right the ship and get back to at least treading water.

1. Unclog the paint. This is a tough one as much has been made about the Lakers ability to acquire All Star talent in Andre’ Drummond but it’s no secret that one of the Laker’s biggest issues on offense is spacing. With our inconsistent ability to hit the three point shot looming larger and larger as the playoffs approach there aren’t many options left for Frank Vogel and the coaching staff to try, The easiest on the court but likely most difficult in the locker room would be re-inserting Marc Gasol back into the starting line up. He plays better from the high post than any other center on the roster and can hit the three. This, likely, would not sit very well with Andre’ Drummond as there is little doubt that Montrezl Harrell is our best-used off the bench and is our best small ball center option after Anthony Davis.
2. Find Ben McLemore shots. The Lakers are not a dynamic offensive team, that horse has pretty much been beat down to the ground here and round the world. Coach Vogel and his staff are excellent at crafting top notch defensive schemes and getting the team to adjust them in-game and on the fly. Where we suffer, and it’s an area I hope Rob and the front office will address this summer, is in creating offensive sets designed to get specific players specific shots. I touched on this on the post game podcast last night but wanted to get into this a little more. We got guys who can make threes but there’s no system in place designed to accentuate any of our player’s skill sets except for LeBron James and Anthony Davis. We under-utilize, in my opinion, the shooting of McLemore (and even Wes Matthews) in terms of setting them up for success. It’s all well and good to have some flow and groove to the offense when The King has the ball but one thing this stretch has shown us is the lack of options the Laker offense creates through schemes. Talent is not enough when your best players aren’t playing, you need something else to fall back on.
3. Live by the three, die by the three. The above point is not meant to highlight our three point shooters, we got plenty of guys who can score from the rest of the floor. We got lazy last night moving the ball meaninglessly around the horn until we were up against the clock and settled for bad three point shots. Shooting volume shots of any kind in and of itself is not a solution to ay problem. You want to create good shots, that should be the goal. If they’re from three, great. If it’s a post up with big on small, awesome. If it’s juking a guy for an open mid-range, fine by me. Without James and even with Davis we are not a good enough offensive team to settle for bad shots.
4. ‘Kieff off the bench ain’t what it was. The difference between Markieff Morris starter and Markieff Morris coming off the bench is jarring. It’s like the guy coming off the bench forgot how to play NBA basketball. In the NBA playoffs Morris was one of our best players off the bench but this season…not so much. The issue is he does not in any way shape or form have a starting role on this team in it’s current rotation. In my opinion this is another area Frank might want to get creative with. Start Morris over either Gasol or Drummond for a couple of games, see how it works out. The dude rebounds bigger than his size, defends bigger than his size. Morris could be our version of P.J. Tucker.
5. The learning process of Talen Horton-Tucker. Sometimes it’s easy to forget this is, for intents and purposes, THT’s rookie season. While the record books will not reflect it as such in terms of his NBA growth I assure you that it is. Talen (hopefully) learned some lessons from this series, lessons in regards to how to better box out without fouling, to use your feet and not your hands and sometimes it’s better to slow down than play at the fastest speed possible. The league is starting to sit on his drives, almost luring him into the paint and then swarming him forcing him into ever-increasingly difficult shots. Use the mid range to shake the defense loose and trust in your three point shot, again. Open up the floor for your drive early by maybe taking some out of character shots from long range. Got to mix it up.

This stretch of games coming up is about as crucial as it gets. We need to get back to at least playing .500 ball before LeBron comes back if we want to stay out of the play-in rounds. Although I can think of worse things than a couple tune-up games prior to the actual playoffs for this team the prospect of getting booted before the true playoffs even begin is a specter no Laker fans wants to see looming. All in all, we need a little more from AD and smarter basketball from the squad.