Aloha,
Wow one of the most exciting games we have had for awhile. DLO not only picked up the slack for LeBron but he was the best player on the floor all night. He basically out Lillard,Lillard. That tailbone injury DLO suffered may have saved the season. He sat and watched the team play and when he came back he decided to be himself and he stopped deferring as much. With no LeBron he took control of the team and not only scored but had 9 assists. If passes that leads to free throws. Counted as assists he would have had several more. Hopefully he will remain assertive the rest of the season.
Spencer has yet to supply a lot of offensive. I think he has deferred too much on that end. But he has been playing some great defense since coming to the Lakers.
Lillard had 28 points but it was a bad 28. Nothing came easy and Spencer blocked him twice including that incredible game winner. Hopefully he will become more aggressive on the offensive end as our 2nd unit needs more offensive firepower.
I thought AD had a real gutsy performance. He was rolling until he took that blow to his shoulder. Still he played with one arm most of the 4th quarter. While he was no longer scoring, he still managed to be a force on defense down the stretch. With DLO scoring 21 in the 4th he really didn’t need to score. I’m hoping that the shoulder is just a nerve thing, like a bad stinger and he will be ready to go against the TWolves. We are 5-4 without LeBron but there is no way we can be that effective without AD. Our entire defense depends on him.
We are 11-5 since February 1st, with a lot of those wins coming against quality teams. When looking at the schedule 11-5 would have been viewed as a nice result. Unfortunately we had dug a deep hole and we really needed to go 13-3. But games like last night give me some measure of optimism. If we can avoid anymore major injuries and get some of our best defenders and rebounders back, we still could be a tough out in the playoffs. We have to do it again, against the TWolves.
Great post, Michael. That was such a fun game. I was not even worried about losing at the end because we had played so well without LeBron and done exactly what we needed to do against Denver late in the game. The comeback after Dame’s 4-point play that put us down 6 should have ended game but it didn’t Credit Rui for that big three and DLO for his best game ever. As you can see above, I want us to re-sign DLO as our third star and spend the draft capital on building a monster front court to help AD.
Thanks Tom, I completely agree.
That was a fun game. Regarding Dinwiddie, I agree he needs to add more offense to his already good defense. This may be due to learning how to integrate himself into the team. Hopefully that turn-around comes sooner rather than later.
He seems to Ball Dominate, which should prolong LBJ and make more of LBJ’s shooting, rather than having to do everything and wearing down.