5 Things: Lakers start roadie off right with a win

It was certainly more of a contest than one might have expected. But, given the Lakers’ struggles against young teams this season, the win was more than enough. Solid contributions from across the board, LeBron’s 25+ ppg streak continued, and for one night more things went right than went wrong.

1. Westbrook bounces back from benching. You don’t play at the level Russ has without being able to turn the page on a bad game. Or two. Or…well, you catch my drift. The fit might not be the best. A mid-season trade seems all but impossible (to me, anyway) and so there remains but one thing to do: figure out how to make it work the best that it can. We’ve seen it in glimpses but it hasn’t found a “sustain” feature, yet. Maybe the long road trip can be the lab where that happens, away from the home crowd pressure, away LA, and among the team we would all like to see play better.
2. Ariza better on defense, still looking for his shot. I thought this was Trevor’s best game of the season. He was able to better execute our game plan on D which is essential for making this team work. He also took the open shots that came his way, most of them just didn’t go in. That’s OK, for now, after not playing for almost the entire season his legs aren’t where they need to be. Seeing him execute the defensive game plan better is a step in the right direction and something we need more of. Playing with LeBron a lot helps his +/-.
3. LeBron keeps playing at a high level. For my part I’d prefer if LeBron keep it to 5 3 PT FGA/game. Unless he’s hot we really shouldn’t see too many 30+ foot shots or early shot clock threes. The corner three he hit off a pass was a great example of the kind of three point shots I think we want LeBron and our specialists shooting more of. LeBron has a 16 game streak of 25+ points going currently and he kept that up against the Magic last night as they couldn’t contain him. Especially in the second half when we went back to him at the 5. There are definitely some teams/match ups that I think Dwight is the better option for. Back-to-backs, as well, I think would be a situation where I would like to see LBJ at the 5 in half closing scenarios. Against teams that are either unsure about their low post identity or don’t have a strong presence in the paint it’s OK. The biggest issue with LeBron at the five is a lack of a rim deterrent and rebounding. Figure out how to balance that out, or when to play Dwight, and this should work better.
4. Carmelo’s road game shows up. It’s been a season long issue. Not only just with Melo, although his home/road splits are fairly dramatic, but with the whole Laker bench. They show up at Crypto, not so much on the road. Carmelo showed us some vintage basketball and then got hot from three, as well, to the tune of 23 points. While the rest of the bench didn’t have quite the same impact (only Monk and Johnson managed to score 10+ points) they all did their part to help bring him the win. I’ll add that it looks to me like Reaves is hitting a bit of a rookie wall as both his defense and outside shot have leveled off a lot lately. THT had his traditional low-impact game after a big one and Johnson continues to play at a steady level off the bench which is great to see since that is where his role would be should he stick past the 10-day.
5. Better defense is a must. We still have to be a lot better on that end of the floor. We simply lack the firepower, especially without AD, to just outscore teams. Sending the young Magic to the line 29 times and letting them score in the paint like they did just can’t continue to happen. Against one of the worst teams in the Association we eked out a win. We won’t be so fortunate against even mediocre teams, like we saw in Indy. Against top teams we’ll get blown out. So something has to happen. If we can outscore teams with LeBron at the five every single games than that could be the answer but the problem is we don’t. We sieve paint points and rebounds while not creating quality shots of our own. So, if we’re going forward with James at the five he, too, has to adjust his game to operate closer to the rim and not further from it. We need to see us not miss the backdoor cut…repeatedly…like we did last night. Above all we need to find it within ourselves to play a higher quality of defense. If not this is done and it’s done now. There will be no late season surge or player we get back that alters that identity. If the guys playing now can’t figure it out it’s likely we’ll see an entirely new team in training camp. Again. For the third season. After winning a title…using defense.

Next up is a very early game against the Miami. Never a good combo. But the Lakers won’t have to leave the state of Florida so maybe they can get they can get acclimated to the EST vibe and come out with some intensity. Miami has powered it’s way to 3rd in the EC among a slew of injuries to key players. Sound familiar? However, that team takes the defensive end a lot more seriously and there is no question that Spo has the team’s attention. So, we’ll see. I don’t have high hopes we can win, to be honest, but if we can get some good play off the bench and James and Westbrook can be as efficient as they were against the Magic we have a shot. I suppose that’s the best this version of the Lakers can muster right now.