5 THINGS

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.

He’s back!!! At least for a half. Anthony Davis was on a minutes restriction (15? 20? didn’t really matter) and only saw some first half action. The second half was left to the Laker Remainders who couldn’t get the stops or hit the shots to beat the Mavs who also saw Porzingis limp off the floor after rolling an ankle. Lakers are putting themselves in a tough sport seeding wise and The King is still a couple weeks away.

1. The return of Anthony Davis. The man looked, expectedly, rusty. Coming off the longest injury lay-off of his career Davis struggled to hit shots form everywhere. That’s expected as I’m sure he got practice in and got plenty of shots up but this was his first NBA action since leaving with the scariest calf strain in Laker history since the hamstring debacle versus the Bad Boy Pistons over 30 years ago. Where Davis did make his impact felt was on defense where he showed he might be able to recapture last season’s defensive impact. That’s where we need AD the most. If he can bring that kind of effort and impact for more and more minutes or playoff chances improve a lot, regardless of seeding.
2. Kentavious rounding back into playoff form? This has been a pretty decent stretch for KCP. He’s being more aggressive with the ball, diversifying his attack and still playing solid D. While it wasn’t enough last night the month of April has revealed that the forks we were all sticking in Caldwell-Pope for a good chunk of the year might be ready to be washed and put away. the man didn’t look done last night at any rate. The bigger question is can he sustain and even improve on efforts like this? If AD isn’t able to recapture his shooting mojo like he did in last season’s playoffs it’ll fall to guys like KCP to bolster the offense and release the pressure created by our drive and dish offense.
3. Talen’s defensive learning process. Last night was a bit of a down game for THT. It’s hard for any player to se their minutes fluctuate like they have for a lot of the guys on the team, harder still for younger players still trying to find their way. Give the Mavs credit, they were ready for his patented drives and forced him into some bad passes. It’s a rare thing these days when THT has more turnovers than assists. Still, despite his atrocious +/- 12 minutes is just too few for Horton-Tucker. The kid needs to play and it’s on the coaching staff to find minutes for him.
4. Three point shooting woes. It’s no secret the Lakers a re not an elite shooting team from beyond the arc. Morris off the bench had a donut to the tune of 0-5, only Schroder and KCP made more than 1 (KCP was on fire hitting 6-12) and neither Kuzma or AD hit one to help open the paint up. Off the bench only Caruso and McLemore (both 1-3) were able to connect. We need to do better, although we kept finding KCP which is line with out team ID. When LeBron returns the paint will be well-packed if we can’t hit threes.
5. Defending without fouling. Too many free throws for the Mavs, who whine enough to get them… Some of that is superstar Luka treatment which i wouldn’t mind quite so much if LBJ and AD got the same. They don’t. Anyhow, some of that is on us over-reaching and not just playing solid D without trying for impossible steals. Just man up, keep your feet active and hands up. if they make shots over you, that’s OK.

This was a game we could have won if we clean up some issues. For me the big thing is we’re keeping our turnovers low. That’s a huge key to playoff success and something that is a fixable issue. Lakers need to get this one back in the next game against Dallas or we’re going to be putting ourselves in a sticky situation.

“Sometimes you get the bear and sometimes the bear gets you”, Big Lebowski. The Utah Jazz, with a healthier roster than in the previous game, easily handled the Lakers last night in a fairly one-sided affair. The Lakers never led, the same starters who shone a couple days ago couldn’t replicate that effort and the Jazz shot the lights out. One to forget because sometimes you just get you ass handed to you.

1. Starters get whupped. The same group that all had heady +/- stats in the previous game all had equally abysmal +/- ratings last night. Not surprising really as it was our hodgepodge collection of “starters” competing against the true Utah Jazz starting five, minus Donovan Mitchell of course. As we’ve said several times this collection of guys was not meant to carry the Lakers for a stretch like this. They’re above-average players, a step or two above role-player, journeyman status, but they’re not All Stars. Maybe Drummond has AS potential, not sure about anyone else. Asking them to beat the #1 Jazz is a tall order considering the Jazz had all but one of their players.
2. The Gobert Effect. Much has been made of the diminishing role of the true big man in today’s game but Rudy Gobert completely flipped the game for the Jazz. With Rudy patrolling the paint on defense and offering an easy scoring release valve for the guards the Jazz dominated the glass, dominated the points in the paint and that opened up their three point game like it has all season long. Most people point to the French Rejection’s defense as the main game-altering ability he has but his ability to finish in the paint and control the glass is huge, as well.
3. The diminishing Montrezl Harrell. Trezz has seen his minutes dwindle as Drummond has asserted himself into the line up. It feels like it’s affecting his game and the staff needs to figure out how to unleash him, again. When Trezz is going we are scoring in the paint, putting a lot more pressure on the defense. That was not the case last night as Harrell only got 4 FGA and no FTA. We’re going to need a lot more from him if we want to pick up a couple more wins.
4. THT’s monster game. I give this kid a ton of credit, he’s taken a lot of the adjustments the NBA has made in regards to his ability to get to the rim and added some moves and wrinkles to keep his flow going. By far the best Laker on the court last night, Horton-Tucker is making a case to be in the starting line up now and the starting PG next season. Worse things could happen, given our cap situation.
5. Time to give Wes Matthews minutes to Ben McLemore. No more reasons, it’s just time. Make the move, Frank.

Not going to read too much into this or overly bemoan the lack of energy and fight, the Jazz are the better team right now. We’ll see how this looks if we meet in the playoffs and we have James and Davis. This was no playoff preview. Time to prepare for the Mavs on Thursday.

Bit late on this one, work is blowing up as we prep the college to re-open to a small degree. Also, I had a chance to attend the Celtics game in-person but was not quite ready to take that step yet (plus the tickets were $200 bucks each). Anyhow, the under-manned Lakers not surprisingly lost to Boston but the real news is Anthony Davis is returning soon. Hopefully.

1. Alright fine, we’ll talk about the game first. J-Brown went off, the Laker starters not named Marc Gasol pretty much took the night off and the bench led by THT and Ben McLemore led a furious come back that came up short. This Laker team without LBJ and AD tends to play too many games with a nonchalant “we got this” kind of attitude. I assure you, they do not “got this”. The fact they’ve managed to play .500 ball without their two superstars is commendable but one can only imagine that if a greater sense of urgency was present that a couple more wins could have been squeezed out. Also, once again, I didn’t think the coaching staff had adjustments in mind as they never figured out a way to contain Brown in any meaningful way. Tip the cap, begrudgingly, and move on.
2. OK, the real news, AD is returning in roughly two weeks should everything proceed positively between now and then. Let’s assume a couple of things for the time being:
   -He’ll play on a minutes restriction to start and ramp up from there based on performance.
   -He’ll start and close games.
   -He’ll primarily play the 4 in order to save that kind of wear and tear for the playoffs.
   That means one of Gasol, Drummond and Harrell will likely be on the floor at all times. There are of course in-game situations that would put them all on the bench and slide AD to the 5 but that means he’ll be guarding bulky threes or slight fours. That’s fine. But I would imagine that in an effort to have him be as ready as possible for the playoffs they’ll try to conserve his minutes at the 5 to as low as humanly possible. I also am of the opinion that he’ll start out on a minutes restriction and ramp up from there. Probably 20-25 mpg to begin with. That means we’ll still be asking a lot of the trio listed above to fill those minutes. If Vogel does a good job monitoring said minutes we’ll likely see AD to start the game, for a few minutes to close the first half. That leaves a large chunk of time to fill. How those minutes get distributed is going to be interesting.
3. What does this mean for the rest of the team? In my mind it means fewer minutes for Wes Matthews who has been a small ball 4 for us of late and of course Marc Gasol and Harrell. Gasol is already playing in an emergency capacity at this point and Harrell would primarily back him up and absorb some AD minutes along with Kuzma. Morris would be pushed back to the bench again where he struggled for most of the season. One would hope his aggressive and more consistent play wouldn’t take a big hit.
4. The Marc Gasol question. In my mind Drummond is the better athlete and has the potential to be the better defender and interior presence the team has a need for. I am also of the opinion that Gasol is a better fit in our OG starting line up. This notion, of course, is wholly speculative. We haven’t seen Drummond play with either James or Davis for a single minute yet. But the idea that most defenses will pack the paint and be content with us shooting strictly from the outside does not seem farfetched to me. In fact it feels predetermined that exact strategy will be deployed against us on a pretty regular basis. If that’s the case then I can see a role for Gasol akin to what McGee did last season. Start the halves, sit the rest barring foul trouble/incredible game.
5. Regarding Wes Matthews. Watching Wes this season struggle against his own body more than anything else has been hard. Injuries like the one he suffered are, traditionally, extremely difficult to come back 100% from. I wish we could take his defensive chops and gift them to THT or Ben McLemore because he can still compete at a high level on D. he has a solid foundation, stronger than he looks and understands defensive positioning. But his shot has never been what it was prior to the Achilles. On offense, based on accuracy and skillset, there are better options for our team. On defense he has a role but I think it’ll be as a spot-defender in late game situations. Yeah, he’s had a couple of hot games where his shot was falling but by and large those have been the outlier and not the norm. Wes is a proud athlete and has put a lot of work in but watching him this season makes me hesitate to sign guys with grievous injuries who were great in the past to large role type of contracts. That includes one of my favorite players one Boogie Cousins and frequent trade target by LakerTom Victor Oladipo. Is it possible they figure something out nd discover a way to make their game work, again? Sure, it’s happened before. But they don’t need to do it in a Laker uniform.

I realize this will drop during the Utah game but them’s the breaks for a working man such as myself. Enjoy the game today, Lakerholics.