These are the games that drive me mad. LeBron outs forth supreme effort, rest of team barely participates on either end of the court. The starting unit, save LBJ, did not get the job done in a measurable way. Frankly, neither did the Laker bench. In fact, save for the fun rally driven by the Laker end of the benchers, there wasn’t much to appreciate about last night’s dismal affair.
- LeBron’s wasted effort. It goes without saying that we are playing with fire. While it’s incredible to watch LeBron play at this level to see it wasted when the rest of the team basically phones it in. LeBron outscored the total output of his fellow starters in the first half (23-22). This we cannot abide. I’ll get into a few of the more pathetic individual performances down yonder but suffice to say we need more and we need more consistency from them overall. In sport you have to anticipate some degree of variance. The best teams cut down the intensity of that degree with solid execution, well-designed plays and playing with focus and effort. The other 4 Laker starters showed none of those things last night and left it all to James. Predictably, we lost the game as a result.
- The bench didn’t pick up the starters in a meaningful way. This is more of a defensive issue as the bench shot better than the starters did, especially THT. But not one player the Lakers will theoretically rely on in most playoff series did anything noteworthy on defense last night. In the box score one would think Monk’s 3 blocked shots flies in the face of that but the Grizzlies 54% shooting overall, 33 assists on 47 field goals made and multiple trips to the free throw line as a result of some pretty lazy defense tell the true tale. The bench didn’t do anything to stem the flow of players on Memphis from strolling into the paint and either getting shots at the rim or hitting the open man. They need to do better.
- The trio of Russ, Bradley and Monk. In short, they were awful. Russ was 2-12, Bradley was 2-10, and Monk cooled way off to the tune of 3-13. Together they shot a combined 7-35 for 20%. The best thing you can say about these three last night was that Russ had another 0 turnover game. I’d have taken 5 turnovers and more made shots and some passion. The fact that all three struggled so badly in the same game basically doomed this one from the jump. A lot of this was just plain missed shots, too. We hit the open man, the open man dithered and allowed defenders to close or just plain missed shots. We looked like the team coming off a back-to-back, not the Grizz. They need to do better.
- Team Oxygen strikes again. It’s not like Ja went off, either. 4-10 with an ally-oop dunk off a pass and a legendary block were his highlight reel for the night. We let Bane get hot, Jaren Jackson Jr. get whatever he wanted and bench players Brandon Clark & John Konchar shake loose for double-digits, as well. This was a result of a completely porous defense that saw the Grizzlies march to the rim through 3 quarters. I don’t have the mind or time to figure out what the points in the paint differential was prior to the run we made in the 4th but the fact that we gave up a staggering 62 points in the paint along with the number of times we fouled guys on drives was appalling. Ja didn’t go off, Brooks didn’t play, and we still got blown out in terms of the time when the result was in question.
- Frittering and squandering the winnable games. If we have to go through a play-in game or two we’ll all look back at the first half of the season and wonder what could have been. Losses to teams that were heavily injured, rebuilding or to teams we had large double-digit leads to may well be what defines this Laker team, which is kind of sad given the pedigree of the players on it. The next couple weeks will determine a lot. Until AD gets back we need to stay around .500 but honestly we need to starting winning at a higher pace if we want to have any hope of truly competing for a championship. As of now, if I’m honest, I just don’t see it and I don’t really see us having the ability to bring in a player that can swing that in a major way. These guys need to figure it out.
The good news a lot of these issues are either fixable or should improve when AD gets back and Nunn makes his debut. The defense sorely needs AD in the paint and another ball hawk on defense in order for us to be able to deploy the kind of schemes Frank relies on. The guys are trying but it’s often not enough and last night I also felt like the overall effort just was not there, a habit this teams falls into far too frequently.
My goodness! On a night you would have expected the Lakers to make a statement, they failed miserably. On the night they didn’t play back to back as the Grizzlies did, you would have thought the Lakers would show up fresh. Instead, they looked like a team dealing with a hangover problem from an all-night party after defeating the Hawks. And instead of taking Lift or Uber to the next game, they choose to drive drunk and fall asleep at the wheels on their way to the game. The result was an embarrassing no-show. Only LeBron showed up.
Yes, this was a case of missing tons of shots, some as wide open as the ocean, but it is also a case of not getting back on defense. The stats mentioned in this 5er says everything you need to know that went wrong.
I will give credit to the Grizzlies for doing what they needed to do, but this is more of the Lakers losing the game than the Grizzlies winning it. You can’t afford to have both your offense and defense off at the same time and expect to win. Heck, you can’t even win against a G- League team with that kind of game.
The coaches should also be faulted for not sensing the real trouble until it was too late. Let’s just move on to the next game and just remember this loss as another reminder of our inconsistency that has been there all season.