Lonnie and other thoughts

Aloha,

Sometimes the fans are right and the coach is wrong. With every missed 3 from Beasley the voices of the fans calling for Lonnie grew louder. Yet it wasn’t until game 3 that the coaching staff listened. And it’s a good thing they did because Lonnie may have saved the series in game 4.

We have seen this Lonnie before on multiple occasions. Then he had those back to back injuries and disappeared from the rotation. I’m still mystified by that.

While the scoring is what everyone is talking about, I thought his defense was exceptional as well. He was in Klay’s shirt the entire 4th quarter and Klay only managed one make. I am hoping we can figure out a way to keep the kid. He’s only 24. But with each performance like this one, it becomes less likely we will be able to afford him.

Everyone likes to talk about Lebron’s age. But you rarely hear anything about Steph’s age. He is 35 and he was clearly gassed down the stretch.

Speaking of LeBron, the Lakers went to point guard LeBron in the 4th. And it turned the tide. While the Warriors had success with their tiny line up, that left LeBron on tiny guards and while he might be old, he’s still the strongest man on the court and the Warriors had no answer.

Lebrons defense has also been impressive. He has not defended like this for 2 years.

Welcome back Austin. It was great seeing him score again. He hasn’t been effective the last few games and even in this game he got off to a slow start. But he found his groove again and I’m hoping that carries over to the next game.

AD only had 4 points in the 2nd half. But unlike some of his other games, that wasn’t his fault. For some reason the Lakers ran nothing for him. They were not even looking for him. If the Warriors go tiny again, the Lakers must feed AD more. Fortunately unlike game 2, it didn’t affect his rebounding and defense. They pulled him out in pick and roll and he was unable to defend the paint as much as usual but the flip side was the Warriors were not getting many clean looks from 3 either. AD’s defensive stand against Curry late in the game was epic. There is no other center in the league that can guard Curry straight up.

I love the depth of this team supporting LeBron and AD. One game it maybe DLO having a big game, the next it might be Austin, or Dennis or Rui or last night, Lonnie. That has happened this entire playoff run. And we are still learning how to play together. We have a collective 3rd scorer which is great because the opponent never knows where that scoring is going to come from.

This game was more like I had expected. The biggest surprise for me in this series was the 2 blow outs. We maybe up 3 – 1 but it’s going to be a challenge to win this series. Even though they lost Kerr found a way to minimize AD’s rim protection through pick and roll. I’m sure that he will roll with it in game 5. And I can say with confidence that the Warriors will not shoot 29% at home from 3. I will be interested in seeing what adjustments Coach Ham makes. He has responded each time all through the playoffs. Hopefully he will have the answer in game 5. As hard as it was to win yesterday, game 5 will be even harder on the Warriors home court.