5 THINGS

That was fun. Maybe a little closer than some fans might have been comfortable with but this ain’t last season’s Rocket’s team. While the record may not show it this team is trying to compete and has the vets to help them do so. So, while not an elite test, this kind of team (younger, faster, looking to push rather than play in the half court) has given us problems in the last couple years and Houston’s time, like the Thunder, is closer than some GMs would like. So in a game where AD fouled out, we couldn’t hit a three to save our lives, the Lakers once again turned to the oldest player in the Association to get them over the finish line.

1. LeBron James, a one man desperado. I’m honestly just trying to enjoy watching leBron do his think at 38 going on 39 in year 21. He just passed Kobe Bryant on the all-time Laker list of 30+ point games (237, Kobe sitting proud at 236 and that was definitely cut short by injury the last few seasons but there it is) which in and of itself is incredible. LeBron has been here 6 seasons and played in 291 games. That means there are but 51 games i which LeBron didn’t score 30+ points. If that isn’t worthy of amazement you might just be dead inside. Also, what minutes restriction? That last one, while seemingly not an issue in November, feels like one I’d like to see Coach Ham strive harder to achieve as the season wears on and we get bodies back. Another 40 minute affair for James and that will add up over time. The team needs to do better by it’s leader.
2. AD vs. Sengun like Godzilla vs. Kong. He held his own against Alperen Sengun but he didn’t seem to faze the young up and coming big man on the other end, either as Davis ended up fouling out against the big man with the herky jerky game.. Call it a Clash of the Titans but this is likely going to be an issue that continues to show itself throughout the season as the NBA is now increasingly populated by talented, multi-dimensional big men. AD looked a step slow against his main opponent all night long and that resulted in him fouling out in a game where the lakers only sent Houston to the line 10 times and went there themselves 29 (the difference in the game, by the way but more on that in a second). It’s not that AD had a bad game, he didn’t, but if he wants that MVP/DPOY crown he needs to try and dominate these marquee matchups a little more, gimpy hip and all. If that’s not important to him, cool,, we got the win but I believe (sic: hope) he wants to shed some of the labels he’s garnered over the last few seasons in purple and gold.
3. Malik Beasleyitis. Also know as Wesley Matthewsitis, Reggie Bullockitis, Danny Greenitis and so on. The Los Angeles Lakers, where three point specialists go to lose money. Where the skill seems to whitcher and die on the vine before our very eyes. Taurean Prince is the latest victim of this deadly, franchise-specific disease and this season’s variant is especially deadly. We are abysmally bad at shooting the three this season and it would be far worse without the lone bright spot game in which we tied the franchise record in made threes (also our only blow-out win). I’ve long contended that this is an issue that starts with the inherent philosophies of the Laker organization. We don’t bring in coaches who fully embrace the modern game, they always have a foot in the old school door, or both feet and just pay the modern game lip service (see Scott, Byron). We have a historic list of big men, we do not have a historic list of ex[pet marksmen. All of our best players thrived at either post play (Wilt, Kareem and Shaq), driving the ball in transition and finishing at the rim (Magic, Worthy, Kobe, and of course LeBron) or the midrange (Kobe, Pau, LeBron and also Kareem who hit the pick and pop 20 footer as easily as his skyhook). The outside shooter list is short: Jerry West. Kinda ends there. Sure we had Nick the Quick and Eddie Jones but those teams didn’t win banners. Fun? Sure, but not legendary. This issue permeates today, we don’t enable good shooters to be the best version of themselves. We tell them to stand around and wait for LeBron or AD to get into trouble with the shot clock and bail them out from wherever they happen to be standing. We don’t run plays for them, we don’t set them up to shoot their shot. We hope a lot that whatever shot they get goes in. It’s not working and won’t until the issue of how the organization values this skill set changes.
4. Cam Reddish defensive ace?! If these kind of games keep happening AD won’t be the only Laker in the DPOY convo and Cam could be in line for Most Improved, as well. In his last 5 games (all starts) he’s had 3,3,5,0,3 steals respectively. The 0 was against Memphis and he only played 25 minutes. In preseason I didn’t see the fit but he was one of the first players off the bench once the games started and has supplanted Austin Reaves as a starter with no end to that in sight based solely on Cam’s play. Where Wood found a spotlight early and seemed to quickly wilt away the more Cam is featured the better he plays on defense. He’s disrupting the half court sets by attacking passing lanes and applying stout on-ball defense. This is what probably every coach he’s ever played for wished he had done in previous stops so credit the Lakers and their development team for unlocking this version. While still a small sample size and most of the games being against a lower tier teams it’s worth noting how active and engaged on that end of the floor Cam has been. His scoring has come and gone which has been the status quo of every Laker not named LeBron James so it’s actually been quite essential that he step it up on defense and that’s exactly what he’s done.
5. A tried and true recipe for this Lakers team. Points in the paint and using that to help create a free throw differential that offsets our woeful outside shooting. It’s why the one game we actually made threes was such a route from beginning to end. Imagining how this team could play if it made just 1/3 of it’s outside shots is a fun exercise but so far one existing solely in the realm of imagination. Cause we don’t hit even 30% of our threes so far, it’s so far under what would seem acceptable as to be funny. Except this isn’t a night at The Improv, it’s grown athletes trying to make a shot from 28 feet out or so. 21 feet in the case of Reaves game clinching three (free throws sealed it, fittingly). While I will never be a full-throated proponent of the “three is everything” aspect of the game it feels like the Lakers are trying to build something with some missing tools other teams possess. Making threes opens a few doors for this team the first of which is reducing the wear and tear on LeBron James. The second is making our defense better since missed threes have been a boon to our opponents transition game, for the most part. Thirdly is how it would enable our centers to better function in the post and paint. Our current modus operandi feels like it’s shelf life expires around the playoffs. Free throws dry up, they don’t increase in a 7 game series. You HAVE to make shots in the playoffs, refs won’t bail you out and we saw that last season under a hail of Denver threes we couldn’t match with our style of play. So while it’s fun, in a painful way, to watch the Lakers body blow their way through the regular season even I have my doubts that this style is sustainable in a 7 game series against any kind of good team. Somebody, and it would be best if it ended up being more than one, needs to get buckets from beyond the stripe more reliably or we’re going to need our defense to find a whole other gear I’ve never seen before to keep games close enough for body blows to be effective. We will lose the war of attrition otherwise.

The games just keep on-a-comin and so we’ll see the Lakers hosting Utah tomorrow night in what should actually be a decent test. With Vincent continuing his kendrick Nunn redux vibe, vando still probably a week or more away and the scary fact that those two players basically represent the cavalry we need some guys to find more consistency in their roles. Once we get through the last couple games on this homestand stretch we are on the road for good long while. It’d be nice to see some positive patterns evolving by then, beyond the silver lining of our vet minimum players.

After getting run out of their own building by the Sacramento Kings (the score was closer than the game ever was if you watched it) there are a few things that I think have become clear. While deeper, longer and larger than the first incarnation of last season’s team the Lakers are still faced with a myriad of basic roster construction issues. While there was early hope for the new 5 out set the Lakers debuted this season it’s also safe to say that this, too, comes with several flaws that start with the personnel who are executing it on the floor. Lastly the coach has, again, come under intense scrutiny as every loss creates a magnifying glass fit to fry an ant hill. Sitting at .500 (6-6; 5-1 at home and 1-5 on the road) there are enough games in the can to start to talk about the emerging patterns both positive and negative. Let’s dig in.

1. How is the overall team performing? Stop me if you’ve heard this one before but injuries to key players have managed to obfuscate the actual potential of this team. Of those injured players it’s pretty easy to see that the lakers are missing Jarred vanderbilt’s energy and hustle on both ends but especially so on defense. The Vandolorian may not put up big scoring numbers but he shows up big on all the impact stats, things that the vet minimum signees haven’t really been able to replicate, at least not as consistently as we saw Vando do in the regular season and on into the playoffs. Also MIA for more games than not was splashy free agent signee Gabe Vincent. With these two out as much as they’ve been (Vando out since early in camp and Gabe has only played in 4 games this season) a lot of the playmaking duty has fallen on the shoulders of young Austin Reaves and D’Angelo Russell when LeBron is out or playing tired. In general the lack of hustle-focused players has led to a pattern of first quarter deficits, terrible defensive rebounding, and 50/50 balls generally not going our way. Sometimes you gotta make your own luck.
2. Didn’t we improve our three point shooting a lot? In what is now a mockery of an annual rite of passage the Lakers accomplished the following: signed some decent looking shooters over the summer, crowed about how we improved our three point shooting, and then proceeded to stink it up by shooting a league worst in just about every three point metric until our game against Memphis in which we tied the franchise record for makes while hardly missing a shot. That game, however, was the aberration as the lakers reverted to type against the Kings and returned to the brick yard. I’ve thought about this a lot and, in a lot of ways, it comes to down to the Lakers as an organization not embracing the three point shot as weapon to install into game plans and plays. The best shooters get plays run for them, screens set where the guy will take his shot in rhythm. We don’t do that, we throw it to dudes willy-nilly and pray for rain to fall. This is a consistent pattern back beyond even Frank Vogel and into Kobe’s last years with the team. Until we embrace getting guys their shots this will continue to be a weak link, hopefully not this weak all season but certainly not a strength.
3. Longer, larger…and slower. Much hype was bestowed upon the Lakers for all the size they brought in. 3 centers, retained Rui Hachimura, even signed a two way center. That ended up leaving a glaring hole at the guard position where a lot of hope continues to rest on Max Christie and Austin Reaves’ young and un-proven shoulders. As it turns out this is becoming a major problem as teams are out quicking our big line ups and our lack of penetration to the rim means we’re not really able to properly collapse the defense. This is turn has affected our shooting across the board. If the Lakers do make a trade it cannot be for another forward/center. It absolutely has to be for guard and preferably a quick one that can also defend at a decent clip. Since those are the most in-demand players across the Association that feels unlikely to happen unless fortune truly smiles down upon the purple and gold.
4. More diamonds in the rough. As has become the annual tradition for the Lakers, they signed two quality players to bargain vet minimum deals with those players hoping to capitalize on the Laker power of “Come Here and Revive Your Career!”. This season features Christian Wood and Cam Reddish. Both have had their ups and downs already with Wood looking like he’s really pressing in the last few games whereas Cam has found a comfort zone I don’t think I’ve ever seen him play in. Both have contributed to wins and both have not shown up in games we probably coulda/shoulda/woulda won with our better players, had they been available. As it is, if i were a betting man I’d wager that the players whose minutes suffer the most when Vincent and Vando return are Taurean Prince (not doing much of anything, reallly) and Christian Wood (not defending or rebounding well for a 7 footer and slow of foot when we need to get quicker). Cam could still maybe close games alongside LeBron, AD and one of Vando, Reaves, Hachimura or Russell if he’s got it going on both ends like he’s shown he can. Both players need to find a level of sustainability in their games, however, as the variance can be a killer.
5. LeBron passing the torch to…LeBron?!?! As many of the preseason plot points have fallen by the way sie (our depth isn’t what we thought it was, our shooting is incredibly worse than last season, Darvin Ham will takes his hands out of his pockets more) the one over-arching storyline the lakers pushed was that AD was FINALLY going to take “the torch” from LeBron. The King said as much on media day (“It’s AD’s team”) and yet, 12 game sin, it’s clear that the Lakers cannot compete when LeBron sits. For all the hype surrounding the “Running it Back” guys they still can’t sustain winning habits without the gravity on the court created by LeBron’s mere presence. While not a huge problem now this will become a major issue in the playoffs and there’s really only one player that can alter this: Anthony Davis. Problem there is the dude is simply wired to defer that responsibility to other players. Even in NOLA he ended up deferring to Boogie Cousins until the latter tore his Achilles. I love the Run It back Guys, they’re plucky and they fight hard. But pluck ain’t enough to sustain winning and our record shows it in every way.

Need to keep feasting on teams we should feast on. Another trend is that the Lakers are generally struggling against playoff caliber teams and fattening up n the sucky ones. That’s fine while we find our identity and work out the rotation while getting guys back but at some point we need to string some quality wins against some quality opponents.

Watching the game against Orlando for the second time and it was even more astounding at how completely lackadaisical the Lakers looked as a whole. Fundamental basketball evidently didn’t make the road trip’s opening flight so one can only hope it arrives at the next stop in Miami. All in all, while a couple lakers turned in some solid showings, the overall tenor of the loss was a complete and total lack of consistent effort.

1. Faceplant to kick it off. Another craptastic first quarter makes one think a change of some kind is imminent. Can’t pin it on Cam reddish, we’ve been slow out of the gate all season long as our first quarter point differential (210-139) is astounding to see over just 5 games. Slow starts mean uphill climbs for the rest of the game. This is where you miss a guy who starts the game with hustle and energy like Vanderbilt the most. Setting a tone out of the gate is as important as getting off to a good start in the 3rd. Can’t play catch up all game, every game all season. Hard to ask LeBron to lead the team out of the gate, dude’s 4 billion years old in NBA years. We need younger guys to match the energy and intensity the opponent brings against the Lakers on a nightly basis.
2. Fundamental were utterly MIA. Needed to put a body on multiple Magic players and just didn’t do it. They out-worked us to the tune of 19 offensive rebounds and clobbered us in second chance points (another disturbing season-long theme that’s emerged) and our turnovers led to an unbeatable edge in transition points. These are effort stats that lost us the game. these are the lunch pail stats and we didn’t bring our hard hat. That better change against the fundamentally sound and hard-playing Heat tonight. This happened all game long, Tree Trio or no, so that means it’s coming down to a lack of executing the fundamental of boxing out. Everyone needed to do better, nobody did.
3. Couldn’t hit a three to save our lives. D’Angelo Russell was 1-10, LeBron and Wood each shot 2-5 and Reaves looked good (more on that later) but after that the well ran very, very dry. These misses generated great scoring opportunities for Orlando more often that which is causing me to revise my internal guide for the lakers to play by. I was an advocate for 30 3 PT FGAs/game and now I’m looking at lowering that to 20, maybe 25 if they’re going in. AD didn’t shoot one and he’s shooting 42.9% (on an anemic 1.2 attempts/game) so maybe he needs to move out more as a floor spacer? I dunno…frustrating trend thus far.
4. Reaves rounding back into form. Of the five starters he was the only who had a positive impact on the game. he made his kind of shots, hit his threes, and generally looked like the dude we’d all been hoping to see consistently this season. While it came in a losing effort hopefully it means Reaves has put his early season struggles squarely in the rear view mirror.
5. Tree Trio adjustment. LakerTom and I did a show where I theorized this would be a good test for the three bigs line up that got so much attention since we deployed it against the Clippers. This was the first time a team that had seen it had time to make an adjustment and it turned out to be a pretty simple one: play faster and harder. Everything about this (both the effectiveness of a three big line up and it’s counter) is a small sample size at this point but it makes sense. The only way we force teams to go big to match up is by beating them on the scoreboard so when that didn’t happen against Orlando (seeing it for the second time) the experiment looked like a flop. This will be a season-long topic for debate, in theory I like the idea of either starting Christian Wood and strategically deploying the three big line up but the fact is they have to use that height to counter speed and effort. The Tree Trio didn’t box out, hustle for loose balls, or score all that much as they basically got ru off the floor by a smaller Orlando team (that still features length, just better speed). The deciding factor is match ups and who wins them. Start Wood against a faster guy or a team that screens for shots like Golden State and I don’t see the point or the sense in it. He’s not a guy who fights through screens and we don’t deploy a switch everything defense very well, at least not yet. That takes a lot of time to implement because everyone on the court has to be on the same page and in sync. We’re not close to that by a country mile. Maybe if we’d had Vando for camp but we didn’t and even then I doubt it. At any rate I’m not giving up on the idea but Coach Ham needs to be more strategic and the Tree trio needs to execute the fundamentals a lot better than they did.

Miami tonight, this will be a tough one. Everybody always wants to count Miami out, yet of all the teams with hype they’ve been to the NBA Finals more in the last 5 years than any other team so they’re doing something right. It starts with Jimmy Butler but the whole team buys in, even the not-supposed-to-be-here Tyler Herro, so if we show up with another half-assed effort i expect this to be an L.

It’d been awhile. The much noted and hyped losing streak the lakers had going against their cross-hall rivals (one of the more unique situations in all of sport) ended last night with the tenet’s of Laker basketball guiding the way: put pressure on the defense and get to the line, be a paint-dominant team, and defend like your role depends on it (it does). Still, it’d been awhile and so was really nice to see the Lakers pull this one out and allow everyone to move on.

1. The defense was feisty! Led by Anthony Davis (4 blocks), Austin Reaves (3 steals)and surprise starter Cam Reddish (also 3 steals and thrust into a starting role due to T. Prince being a late scratch after warming up and reporting some mild knee soreness adding another body on the pile of our walking wounded) the Lakers did a phenomenal job disrupting the late-game Clipper offense inside the three point line. The Clippers also missed some very makeable shots but I still liked the way the team defended as a whole. LeBron even got up for 2 big blocked shots.
2. LeBron is a marvel. He really shouldn’t be doing this, at some point the hops will go…won’t they?! At any rate the breakaway ally-oop lob Reaves dished to The King as we pulled away in OT should dispel any “old” notions, at least for awhile. While once again blowing past the self-imposed minutes-restriction (and honestly I don’t fault the staff or anyone for that last night, we only had 8 healthy, NBA-ready players and that’s not a knock on Colin Castleton, Dmoi Hodge, Maxwell Lewis or Alex Fudge it’s just the truth) James put on a gem of a show for everyone in attendance and watching on the tube. 4-8 from three, skying to block shots, and that one-handed jam in transition from Reaves as the cherry on top. Gnarly stuff, man.
3. Reaves rounding into form. The efficiency still leaves something to be desired and he still isn’t getting a consistent whistle on pretty solid contact but Reaves didn’t let his offence get in the way of his defense. While it’s also poignant to remember that Max Christie was only going to be so effective and there weren’t really many other options other than to go with Reaves down the stretch, I still thought this was the most “our Austin” type game he’s played this season. The hustle was there and he started driving to the rack more when the shot still wasn’t falling (other than a couple of his pet elbow jumpers he can almost make in his sleep when he’s gathered right) and my one true knock was the team-high 5 turnovers. That’s not on Reaves alone, a lot of lakers a re forcing passes into too tight of coverage, but Reaves also just made some bad passes. Still, a very encouraging game and hopefully the forebearer of better games to come.
4. Evolving away from the three guard line up. We’ve all harped on it, most of us more than once. So it was a little surprising to see a line up of D’Angelo Russell, Max Christie, Christian Wood, Jaxson Hayes and Anthony Davis for more than a few minutes last night. Coach Ham just loves him a triplicate of some kind or another. At any rate, that group of guys held their own (and whichever ref called the “hanging on the rim” tech on hayes deserves to have his whistle taken away, c’mon man…dude’s first basket of the season and was legitimately going hard in transition and was carried along by his momentum). Again, the lack of healthy and NBA-capable players likely had more than a little to do with this choice but the matchup worked for a few reasons. The Clippers aren’t fast team, per se. Both leonard and George want to conserve their bodies and energy for the long season and playoffs. They feature a rim running center more after trading Batum and Morris Sr. away. Russell Westbrook likes to get out but is often a little out of control on the break. So that length had enough speed to match up in this game, not saying this is a line up we’ll see a ton of going forward but there are a couple teams it makes sense to deploy.
5. Christian Wood 6th man of the year. While I don’t see the campaign to start Wood going anywhere (or making much sense on an every game basis, at least in the regular season) I heartily endorse the creation of the C-Wood for 6thMOY fan club. With his “it’s all over now baby blue” put back dunk, increasingly reliable defense and floor stretching ability it’s been fun watching Wood dominate against the benches of opposing teams. To my way of thinking it still makes more sense to start either Vanderbilt (upon his return) for a defensive tone, Prince for an offensive tone, or Reddish for a little bit of both kinda tone. I like being able to deploy Wood like a surgical air strike when LeBron goes to the bench because it gives he and AD a little bit of a different look to work against. I’m sure some folks would rather he start but I think he can be a solid “best player off the bench” and if he keeps this up he could end up in the running for the award for best bench guy.

With a couple days off the Lakers have some time to get guys healthy, work on tightening up some things on both ends, and rest LeBron. Loved how we fought in this game, even though we almost gave it away when we took our foot waaaaay off the gas in the last two minutes. Good stuff.