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Trail Blazers guard Gary Trent Jr. has signed with Klutch Sports

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The Lakers have been flirting with a loss like this for quite a while. This game was lost by the time the halftime buzzer sounded. Dennis and Trez racked up 18 and 12 points respectively at halftime but were looking tired and gassed, especially Dennis. I knew they wouldn’t have anything left for the second half. And that’s exactly what happened. Dennis and Trez did not show up in the second half. With LeBron not playing at his usual level, and AD not off to a good start, the Warriors were able to hang around looking for any opportunity to knock us off track, which is exactly what they did.

Frank should not have kept KCP too long on the bench and got cold in favor of Mathews, who has yet to find his rhythm on a consistent basis. Our 3 point shot as well as our suffocating defense left us in this game, but we’ll get that back. What we’ll not get back is our home court advantage. I am treating all of our games this season as road games. It’s our players who are supporting one another without the fans.

Overall, a loss is a loss and I have no hard feeling on this one except to say that it’s due. Like you said, this was a bigger win for the Warriors than a big loss for the Lakers. Thank you, Jamie.

Miami Heat’s Taunts and Sneers Setup Lakers’ Tuesday Night Revenge Game!

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With a cocky Jimmy Butler telling LeBron James and the Lakers “You’re in trouble” and a taunting Tyler Herro sneering after a late three to clinch the win, the Miami Heat have suddenly brought the 2020 Finals back to life.

While you couldn’t blame the Heat for a little strutting and swaggering after losing the first two games in the Finals to the favored Lakers and then being written off by everybody, it might have been smarter not to poke the bear. You could see the storyline already developing as an angry LeBron James and Lakers team walked off the court with 10 seconds still left on the clock, setting the stage to approach Tuesday night’s Game 5 as a revenge game.

Forget LeBron allegedly telling Jimmy the Heat were in trouble earlier in the game or the Lakers completely disrespecting Miami by coming out flat, James has a long history of grasping anything possible for extra motivation. LeBron, AD, and the Lakers’ starters have no one to blame for losing Game 3 than themselves. They were passive, complacent, and ineffective. The only thing that kept them in the game was the outstanding play of their bench.

In addition to being outplayed, the Lakers were also outcoached. After a failed attempt to contain James and Davis by playing zone in Game 2, Erik Spoelstra went back to man defense in Game 3 but with key adjustments. Defensively, the goal was the same as playing zone in Game 2: prevent LeBron James from hunting and forcing switches on Duncan Robinson and Tyler Herro by doubling, hedging, stunting, and fighting through screens.

Offensively, the Heat wanted to turn the tables on the Lakers and unleash Butler to relentlessly hunt and force switches to take advantage of Green, Kuzma, and Caldwell-Pope just as James had done to Robinson and Herro. While Frank Vogel has always been a strong opponent of switching, it was LeBron James’ unwillingness to fight through screens and willingness to allow switches that ended up making Spoelstra’s adjustments successful.

Overall, Jimmy Butler enjoyed a career best playoff game, posting a triple double with 40 points, 11 rebounds, and 13 assists in 45 minutes without taking a single 3-point shot, which reveals how teams need to defend him. The Lakers need to go under those screens and force Jimmy, who is average at best from deep on less than two attempts per game, to make his threes rather than letting him to go 14–20 from the field and 10–12 from the line.

On offense, the Lakers simply need LeBron James and Anthony Davis to play like superstars. James cannot turn the ball over 8 times and Davis cannot get into foul trouble and put up just 15 points and 5 rebounds with zero blocks. The Lakers’ other starters also need to show up. 5, 4, and 2 points and -26, -15, and -15 +/- from Caldwell-Pope, Green, and Howard in a Finals close out game won’t cut it. Frank Vogel clearly needs to make some adjustments.

While it may sound to some like a broken record, the time may be here for Vogel to sit Dwight Howard, move Anthony Davis to the five, and start Markieff Morris at the four to turbo charge the Lakers’ offense and defense. Whether Adebayo plays or not, that’s an offensive lineup with the 3-point shooting to offset the Heat doubling LeBron and AD and a defensive lineup to match up and defend the five-out sets that have been killing the Lakers.

In the end, the Lakers just need to come ready to play. Down 1–2, this is essentially another elimination game for the Miami Heat. Lose and they’re in a 1–3 hole from which only one team in NBA history has ever come back. While great coaching trumped talent in Game 3, LeBron, AD, and the Lakers will be looking to avenge their loss and will come out gunning for revenge. Game 4 should be a wire-to-wire blowout with the Lakers dominating.

Despite Jimmy’s heroics and Strolestra’s genius, it’s still Lakers in Five!

Herro’s snarl keeps Miami’s title hopes alive

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Out of the gate, Los Angeles was out of sorts. Miami elected to turn away from the zone defense that the Lakers had abused all too easily in the first two games. Man-to-man matchups must have surprised the Laker offense early, as they turned the ball over NINE times through the first eight minutes of the first quarter. They finished the quarter with 10 miscues, the most by any team in a single quarter this season. Butler established himself early (and often), scoring eight first-quarter points while LeBron and Davis both recorded four turnovers apiece. With the Lakers flummoxed on offense, Davis picking up his second personal foul with four minutes left in the first led to complete dysfunction on the opposite end of the court, too. Davis didn’t even attempt a shot in the first quarter, playing only seven minutes. Miami began the night shooting 7-8 from the field and skirted ahead to a 22-9 lead.

Miami head coach Erik Spoelstra didn’t run much zone defense–if any–during the second half, slotting Butler on LeBron and denying any switching action from the Lakers. If LeBron called for a screener, Butler fought through to stay on LeBron. Whoever the Lakers were attacking on defense (whether it be Duncan Robinson or Herro or whoever), that Heat player would jump out over the screen and stunt at the ball handler before springing back to his man while Butler recovered after fighting through a screen. For the most part, it worked like a charm. Watching LeBron and Butler go head-to-head for nearly an entire half was wildly entertaining and Butler even got the best of him in the end.

Here’s how Heat stifled LeBron James, Lakers in Game 3

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After falling behind 2-0, Butler said Miami had allowed the Lakers too many offensive rebounds and failed to get back in transition, the same mistakes that proved costly in the opener. “Eventually we’re going to have to fix it because that’s how we’re going to win,” he said. This proved prophetic: In Game 3, the Lakers didn’t get their first second-chance point until the second half and finished with only six. And not only were they unable to run often, they weren’t particularly efficient when they did.

All playoffs, the Lakers’ opponents have talked about limiting their easy shots and forcing them to play against a set defense. No one, however, has been able to do these things consistently. That the Heat did — and made Los Angeles turn the ball over on 20 percent of its possessions — without Bam Adebayo and Goran Dragic is remarkable.

Anthony Davis, so dominant just two days earlier, took a seat with two fouls in the first quarter with four turnovers and no shot attempts to his name. It was a rough night for Davis, but look at how Miami is shrinking the floor, showing help and forcing those early turnovers.

Uncomfortable, Davis finished with 15 points on 6-for-9 shooting and missed the only shot he took in the fourth quarter. Much has been made about the Heat having no one who can match up with Davis besides Adebayo, but that’s not necessarily the point. The goal is to make him feel like there is always another defender lurking nearby, regardless of who’s guarding him.

“All five guys on the court’s antennas were up for his sets and for his looks,” Heat forward Jae Crowder said.

The plan was similar against LeBron James, who had eight turnovers to go with his 25 points and eight assists. Miami learned after Game 1 that it could not simply surrender easy switches against James, and in Game 3 it sold out even more on Los Angeles’ shooters to prevent him from getting to the basket. The Heat tried to show and recover on his pick-and-rolls, and if they had to switch, they made sure he saw bodies.

All season, Los Angeles has never scored fewer than the 34 points in the paint it mustered on Sunday. (Butler alone had 26.) The Lakers shot 14 for 22 at the rim, essentially an average night for an average team. Los Angeles could have potentially overcome this with 3-point shooting, but it went 14 for 42 from deep. Miami often stopped short on its close-outs, encouraging the Lakers to shoot. Far too often, they either turned down an open look or bricked it.