5 Things: Lakers fall to Indy, #0 benched down the stretch

It’s funny because I didn’t even realize they had taken Russ out. I watched the same poor execution on both ends I had been watching all game. Guys got blown by, the defense is just so slow to react. Guys couldn’t hit shots, late game offensive execution being a season long issue at this point. All of that is to say, Frank taking Russ out didn’t matter. Nothing improved, we stayed the same: mediocre. At best.

1. Ariza has been awful. In his 11 games this season Trevor has been anything but the small-ball savior some had hoped he would be. For myself I was always more than a little dubious that a 36 year old with multiple injuries over the last couple of seasons was to be counted on for much of anything. This has sadly been the case. He’s shooting a career worst 37.1% from the floor, a decent 37.9% from three (but takes only 2.6/game) and his intangible impact has been borderline non-existent. Last night he dropped a donut albeit in only 15 minutes so it’s hard to pin the loss on his meager contribution. This is the problem you begin to have when over 1/3 of your roster is over 33: slow, slow slow. Slow and methodical can work in the playoffs but not so much in the regular season. If we’re going to start Trevor and he’s going to soak up this many minutes from Monk and even Reaves we need more.
2. Play Dwight more. Give the man 20 mpg to work with. Don’t keep it match up based, or at least give him a little more leash to to run with. Dwight, who had been effective keeping a lid on Sabonis early although not at stopping the flow of paint points scored on us, played fewer minutes than Ariza. But if we drop Ariza from the rotation, play LBJ at the 4 and bring Monk back into the starting 5 I think that makes more sense on almost every level except for the “I dunno, can TA play better with even more minutes?” level. Dwight is also currently tied with Nate Thurmond at 14,464 rebounds for 10th on the All Time list. Small ball works with LeBron and shooters sometimes, it’ll work better with AD on the floor. In order to give our defense the best shot it can have we need a guy who knows to defend the paint better and let him loose. When AD returns his role can go back to something like this, which makes sense. But we both need to save some wear and tear on LeBron and up our presence on D.
3. Awful from three. I’m sure Frank will say something about “the law of averages” or that he “liked the shots they just didn’t go down” but this is a common theme with the Lakers now. Poor three point shooting, and more importantly, not finding ways to get the guys we brought in to do that quality shots. Honestly it would have been a lot worse save for Westbrook’s uncharacteristic good night from beyond the arc (he went 4-6, the rest of the team went 7-28). I don’t expect this to change mid-season, post-season or next season. Frank is not the coach for a volume three point shooting team. We need to figure out how to be the dominant paint scoring team and be better at keeping a lid on the other team’s three point shooters. That’s the only solution that makes sense to me at this point.
4. Defensive stopper. I think we need the best perimeter defender we can find. We need someone who can excel at being the point of attack and it’s not anyone currently on the roster. No offense to any current Laker but they all, to a man, routinely get blown by, give up play to a dominant hand, and get lost on screens and switches. Nobody except undrafted rookie Austin Reaves is able to consistently draw charges, nobody at all is fighting through screens and it often looks like we’re not talking on defense. This is on Vogel and the team leaders.
5. Nowhere to go but awwww F#$% that. This is what we are right now. We need AD back and playing at a high level on both ends. I think we need to trade THT (and if we can include him w/o him playing minute 1 this season) Nunn for a defensive ace and I don’t care what else they bring to the table. We need to stop guard penetration into the paint and we need to stop the layup line at the rim after the game has started. I think we have the scoring, even if we lose THT, in-house to play at a high enough level to compete better. But the defense will not be repaired with the guys we have now. We’re either big and slow or small and slow, we’re not quick to the ball, we don’t rebound at a high level. Those are the death of anyone’s playoff dreams.

Kudos to THT for a bust out game. Call me if he does it for a month. No more spirit awards from me this season. This is getting sad and that’s the nicest way I can frame it.