It didn’t used to be like this. The .500 mark, at least for this season, has become the barometer for success. Astounding considering the legacy and history the Lakers have, that LeBron and AD are on the team, and that a lot of the key players in the rotation are still here after the trade deadline. We can go back and forth about what could have been if we had made a move this summer but I don’t think a better move existed. Would the Turner/Heild deal have been better overall for the Lakers than the moves we made? Maybe? At least we would have had more time to incorporate them into our offensive and defensive schemes. Still, in my opinion, I like the larger package of players acquired both for flexibility and overall fit. A such, we lost yesterday and went back to two games under the ever elusive .500 mark.

1. The little things can add up to big issues. Even with all our new guys the Lakers really can’t afford to let the minor details slip from their focus. This was a pretty evenly played game that essentially came down which team made more free throws. That would be the Knicks who beat us in all the hustle and energy stats: both kinds of rebounds, points in the paint, steals, blocks, made and taken free throws and points off of turnovers. Everyone loves to hit that crowd pumping three ball, especially in semi transition before the defense gets set. You can’t let those big, happy-fun-time moments eclipse your attention to detail and doing the basics of the job: rebound, defend, get back in transition and make your free throws.
2. Malik continues to grind. The calls for Reaves to start will continue to grow so long as the Malik Beasley three point shot is as ineffective as it’s been. There’s nothing about Malik that will change the defensive game plan when it comes to the Lakers, especially with LeBron out. Junk the paint, throw a defender or three at AD, and let the rest of the Lakers try and beat you is the recipe that is both tried and true. The hope and theory was an elite three point shooter could alleviate that issue by keeping at least one defender honest. That’s kind of working in that there is a guy who is a step or two off of Malik at all times. I think part of the issue is our sets are pretty stationary for this to really work. If Malik camps out in a spot and doesn’t move from point to point B with the aid of screens he’s fairly easy to defend . Get him in motion and you might start to see a seam or two open up. Of course, once LeBron is back, the same will apply. Junk the paint, keep a guy a step or two off the weak-side shooter, let the superstars fight through the defense all game long. Nothing Malik is doing right now will change that.
3. The learning curve. This was always going to be how it went down. Few head coaches come on like Phil Jackson (55-27, lost in the conf. finals, went on to 3-peat in Chicago after that). Coach Ham was going to go through a learning curve on live TV in an arena filled with thousands for the entire season. That doesn’t really bother me. What does are the statements where he insists he not only did the right thing but that, given the chance, he’d do it the exact same way. While a good chunk of those answers may be just to get through a media session there is also something to be said about allowing the learning process to humble yourself. perhaps that will come more in the summer when the grind isn’t ever-present. I think that Ham, like Vogel before him, has a lot of solid coaching potential and that, for the most part, the coach gets the blame when the issue is really that LeBron and AD have been in and out of the line up all season long, he was handed an ill-fitting roster and did the absolute best anyone could ask for, has to incorporate about half of a new team into the fold on the fly while battling for a playin or playoff spot, and all while LeBron may or may not be back at all this season. There’s an awful lot to like about both Ham’s approach and demeanor and we should all have expected some kind of learning curve. Stubbornness can be a boon and a bust, just ask Russ.
4. AD takes the blame. I have to agree with Schroder: one person does not win or lose a basketball game. It’s culmination of events and moments that allow for the last minute or so to be micro-analyzed. If we had made more shots, gotten more rebounds, or any one of 4 Lakers who missed free throws made the one they missed this story turns out differently. Sometimes I think AD’s heart is in the right place in that he believes he is and should be an alpha-level player but that his default mentality just isn’t quite up to the task. This stretch is a good barometer for the Lakers: what can AD do with this group sans LeBron? So far it’s been to mostly beat teams with keys players missing with some real solid showings against a mostly healthy Golden State (no Wiggins but a returned Curry), a totally healthy Dallas (still the win of the season, IMO) and a solid win over Toronto when it looked like we had kind of decided we weren’t going to win. AD taking the blame would feel better if I though he approached the game with a “I shall kill them…I SHALL KILL THEM ALLLLLLLL!!!!!” mentality. But I don’t think he does. he’s too nice, too laid back and so on. Like Gasol he needs that guy who does have the extra gear almost on command. With no LeBron, however, we just have to hope AD can come up to something like that kind of level of domination. Force the offense to run through you, don’t let it.
5. Time is running out and many factors are aligned against us. 14 games, out of the playin, nobody wants to do us a favor and we don’t hold many tie-breakers. Not a recipe for an easy journey to the post season. There is hope, though. I don’t think Malik can shoot much worse than this, Vanderbilt had a “bad” game by his standards and DLo went cold at the wrong time. We have enough to push through talent-wise. This group just has to want it more than they show some nights. The little things add up, the journey will be tough and all the more rewarding should we come out of it with a deep playoff run, and if we can finally reach, dare I say pass, .500 we can hang with a lot of the western conference teams in a 7 game series with half a LeBron or so. I may not pick us to win it all that way but if we get more than half a LeBron and AD can keep rounding back into form while the new guys coalesce we have as good shot as a lot of teams do. There are so many “ifs” that need to start breaking our way, though.

Big back-to-back coming up with the biggest question being will AD play in both? If not and we lose one (or both) all the hope and optimism will deflate out of the balloon and fast. Win out, get to .500 and come back home for a decent stretch of games and…you never know. Go Lakers.

Last night two important things happened: the Lakers honored an all-time great human being in Pau Gasol and the current iteration of the team won a key game. The win, coupled with some key losses, moved the Lakers into the playin round at 9th place. While nobody associated with the Lakers should be satisfied with where we’re at it’s still a benchmark we needed to reach in order to have a shot at the playoffs.

1. AD in full on beast mode. The fragility of Davis, his willingness to play through injury, and his general ability to be available has been questioned to no end mainly because he’s often injured, unavailable to play, and that happens a lot. Last night I honestly wondered if he would play after taking that elbow to the nose. I hoped it wasn’t serious but also thought the Lakers might exercise caution and maybe get him X-rays before sending him back out. Whether any of that happened or not is moot because AD came back out before the half. It was a good thing he did because Davis powered the Lakers to this win by gobbling up rebounds and scoring inside. This is the player we need for a few months to have any chance at all of making serious noise this season.
2. Coaches can’t seem to get Malik on track. I want this guy to succeed as much as any Laker. The team option this summer is going to be a massive quandary for an organization that will also potentially have to pay Reaves, Walker IV, Hachimura, and D’Angelo Russell. $16.5 mil is a lot for a streak shooter who doesn’t also defend or create or score from more than one area of the floor. Some of it is in Malik to make his shots but it also comes down to creating a scheme he can succeed in. Currently that scheme is someone drives and kicks it out to Malik whose defender they hope sagged off. Coach Ham should breakdown some of Golden States sets that free up Steph and try to incorporate some screeners to free up Beasley because we will need him to succeed at some point. I’m sure for his financial reasons he’d like to succeed, too.
3. Reaves gonna get paid. Austin has played his way into an $8-10 million deal with the only question being from whom. He’s shown he can be a de facto point guard this season, can get his shot from inside and out, and is a decent enough defender when paired with Davis and a ball hawk defender in the back court. He has been crucial in all our wins since LeBron went out and we often lose when he has a bad game. Reaves is at the top of my “gotta keep” list and I would let Malik and Mo walk to retain his services. His last test, executing at a high level in the playoffs, could be looming and if he passes that he could start to creep up towards a $15+ million contract this summer. Love to see these kind of guys succeed, hope the Lakers don’t cheap out again when it comes time to pay the piper.
4. Hachimura’s midrange Magic. Personally I love Rui’s game. I could stand to see him get after it better on the glass and on D but he’s still young and who knows what could happen if we had a whole summer and camp to develop and better utilize his skill set. Rui and Reaves were both huge in last night’s win making shots and rising to the challenge.
5. Viva Gasol. I’ve always been a huge Gasol fan, even on Memphis. I’ll never forget the moment Insaw we had traded for him: The pizza lounge at Harvey’s hotel and casino in Lake Tahoe (Nevada side obvi) moments after attending a Phish concert. It was also a great concert but that moment made me believe that the Lakers would a) keep Kobe in the fold b) were actually serious about winning c) would contend that season. While he didn’t threepeat due to Boston being ready for NBA Finals intensity he did help lead us to back-to-back titles and got his revenge 2 seasons later. I was never for one second in favor of the trade for CP3 that was revoked by Stern. You don’t trade big for small especially when the bugs are elite passers and can score from anywhere. Pau ended up adding the three point shot to his arsenal and having a lengthy post Laker career. I’ll always think the Lakers did wrong by he and LO but it’s all water under the bridge now. The Lakers did right by Pau last night and he didn’t disappoint with what was both an emotional and inspiring speech.
   

Toronto coming up Friday. We are, in some small way, now in control of our destiny. Win and you hold position and hopefully move up. Lose and you go back to relying on someone else to help you by beating a key opponent. I like being in control so let’s see if the Lakers can win a few games in a row.

What kind of team do we have? There is, understandably, a lot of hope and semi-excitement about the potential of this team. Since the cavalry has arrived we’ve beaten the Warriors 3 times, OKC once, Pelicans once and Dallas once. In that same span we’ve gotten blown out by Portland in a game we no-showed completely, got worked by Memphis and lost to Minnesota in a game we were competitive in for about 10 minutes or so. So which version of this team shows up tonight?

1. Gas Game. As in “will the Lakers take their collective foot off the gas?” With injuries and personal issues sidelining Ja Morant, Steven Adams and Brandon Clark the time is right for the Lakers to…relax? This has happened on more than a few occasions this season and it’s time to end it. Today. Run out to an early lead? Don’t get cocky, it’s a 48 minute game and Memphis are a rock solid team as-is, without all those guys. AD in particular needs to show up like a man coming out of a long fast on Thanksgiving. Time. To. Feast. If he doesn’t show up, or the team plays middling on both ends, this game could easily be frittered away like the Minnesota and Portland games where we are all left wondering what it will take for this group to find internal motivation to succeed.
2. Which Dennis Schroder shows up today? In his last 5 games he’s shooting 35.8%, 22.7% from three but is keeping the offense moving (for the most part) with 8.4 assists to only 2 turnovers per game. He’s always been a streaky scorer and there’s nothing anyone can do about it. He’s not automatic from anywhere but he needs to continue to apply pressure on the defense and hit the open man. If the open look is there, take it, but we don’t need a ton of points from Dennis, just the threat of a ton of points.
3. The biggest Laker question mark this summer could do himself a solid by having a solid game. Malik Beasley and his $16.5+ mil option are likely to be a hot topic of debate in the purple and gold world the second the Laker’s season concludes. Will they pick it up? Will they pick it up and trade him? Will they leave it on the table and let him test free agency? if he does how hard will they try to retain him? He was brought here to shoot and help create some space. Unfortunately, in his last 5 games he’s shooting poorly (36.8% overall, 29.7% from three) and from distance he’s quickly shedding his “volume” label as he has shot 4,6, 12, 4, and 11 times from beyond the three point line. He doesn’t get to the line much, isn’t a good rebounder and is basically the worst defender in our starting five. Now some of that can certainly be a factor of having a defender in close proximity to him at all times and some of that is from the, shall we say rudimentary, sets the Lakers run (or more importantly don’t run) to get him open looks. The line is “LA is where shooters go to die”. Malik needs to do his best to try and shake that folklore up a little bit.
4. The return of D-Lo? Currently listed as questionable and I expect it’ll be a close to game-time decision if he goes or not. if he does it takes a lot of pressure off the two guards mentioned above. Schroder can slide back onto the bench, Malik will have a PG whose shot is more respected that Schroder’s, and AD will have a guard who can get into the paint and make plays a little better than Dennis can. D-Lo will be testing free agency this summer as he is set to become an unrestricted free agent and how he plays down the stretch could go a long way in determining how many zeros are his next deal.
5. Honoring Pau Gasol. Not gonna lie, I had REALLY wanted to go to this game tonight and I just couldn’t make it happen. Tickets at the top of the arena re around $77 bucks online right now and it’s not sold out (I mean…what is these days when TicketMaster is the ultimate scalper?) so if you’re wondering what your evening might hold wonder no more. I’m looking forward to seeing and hearing Pau’s speech, it really sucks Kobe won’t be there to give him a mild roast for his introduction, and most importantly let’s all band together and honor a truly great Laker in Pau Gasol. Two of those banners are your doing as much as anyone else’s, man.

This will be the last time we play Memphis and we’ve each won one. Get a W tonight and, should it come into play, we’ll have the tie-breaker over an in-conference rival. While it feels unlikely that Memphis could fall all the way down to our neck of the woods it’s still a mathematic possibility. Besides, should we face them in the playoffs, having the better record never hurts. Can’t afford to no-show anymore games but especially not any against Western Conference teams. Those losses are super magnified and we can’t afford anymore.

This is where the rubber meets the road, where we find out who cares about winning or who is playing for their next deal. This is where we see what kind of coach we fired Vogel for and what kind of coach Ham might become. This is where we see what AD is made of.

1. El matador. That would describe the overall defensive intensity of the Lakers not just in this game but for the season. We’re 20th in overall defense, 17th in defensive rating (which is essentially our points allowed per game) and in points off turnovers. We’re 23rd in 2nd chance points and we saw a mediocre defensive effort from all involved last night. This team does not have a defensive identity except to get defensive with one another and the media. Can’t blame the old favorites, anymore (i.e: Russ, Bryant) this is all on the new fellers and man did it look awful. Wins against teams imploding slowly (Dallas) or missing key players (Golden State) created a false sense of hope and buoyancy that were quickly and jarringly brought back down to Earth. This was best exemplified in Schroder’s lackadaisical approach to defense but by no means was it relegated to one player. Yes, AD had 5 blocks and that’s wonderful. We let the Grizzlies score 86 points in the paint and 33 fast break points. Nobody was playing defense last night and this against a western conference team we absolutely needed to beat and a potential playoff match up (in theory…)
2. Getting the whistle didn’t save us this time. We’ve been fortunate to be on the right side of the free throw battle, for the most part, in a lot of our wins. We shot 6 more free throws again last night. It’s rare that we win when we shoot fewer free throws than the other team and that’s because we rely completely on paint points and fast break points. This team cannot shoot from the outside with any kind of consistency. Feel free to test me on this by going back and looking at individual games but you can quickly get to the truth by seeing we’re 4th in the league in FTA/game. Only Miami, Milwaukee and Boston are in front of us and those are also teams that attack the paint.
3. Band of Brothers, er, Mercenaries. This team feels like a plane full of mercs about to go on a mission together and they don’t care who comes back as long as they live. This is but one issue with a borderline complete roster overhaul with a 1/3 of the season left, a rookie coach, and a franchise with an identity of cheapness. Everyone is playing for their next deal, not for the team. Ham evidently commands the same amount of locker room respect Vogel did because this comes down to gravity. Or a lack thereof. Same goes for the leadership of LeBron and AD. For the amount of money we’re paying them one would think that they could kinda sorta maybe command the locker room to a small degree. Evidently not.
4. Speaking of AD… Out again tonight, along with D-Lo. The Lakers…all heart, baby. Michael Cooper and Kurt Rambis had more heart in a dirty sock than these guys.
5. We still have a chance. Incredibly just about every team we need to leapfrog also lost last night so what shred of hope that this dismal season could result in something meaningful yet lives. Not too sure how many more in conference games we can lose but the number is assuredly small. The Lakers are relying on more than couple teams to lose a lot more than we will and for that to even matter we need to win games. Memphis is a hungry team with chemistry, a better test than either Golden State or Dallas. OKC tonight…without our three highest paid players…would have been a good test and still could be for the scrubs and guys playing to get out of the vet minimum range of contracts. Lose tonight and OKC moves back in front of us which just makes the mole hill look more and more like a mountain.

Some guys have it. You certainly can’t teach it but you can, sometimes, inspire it as the great ones have done in the past. That inner fire that doesn’t quit, that doesn’t give up or hang your head. Ever. Last season’s team did not have it in any way shape or form. This season’s team has had it all season and it’s nice to see it didn’t go away with the roster turnover and possibly even got better. Let’s get cooking.

1. Dennis Schroder rising to the task at hand. Dennis has had a myriad of assignments tossed his way, was recently demoted to the bench, and was thrust back into the starting line up due to injury. While his shot wasn’t on he didn’t let that deter him, something that is emblematic for the entire Laker team these days, and found a way to get the team going on offense with 8 assists to just one turnover. Schroder didn’t hit a single three pointer but did score inside often enough to keep the pass alive when it was needed and showed a coolness under pressure we needed to pull the victory out.
2. AD’s big game. Davis hadn’t looked like himself much lately his uneven play. He found his inner flame last night in the paint where he dominated on the glass and with his scoring along with racking up 4 assists. He was also a force on defense deterring shots at the rim and that’s what we truly need out of him. This team is very beatable when AD doesn’t play defense at an elite level. While he had some help on that end and on the glass last night it starts and basically ends with AD.
3. LeBron’s foot injury. Feels like the entire season is riding on one’s guy aged body and we’re all hoping he just gets through every game able to still play. Oh…wait…that’s exactly what’s happening. Hopefully LeBron’s right foot injury isn’t too serious, haven’t really seen any updates, I assume he’ll be listed as questionable on the IL for the Memphis game and I kiiiinda hope he rests it for a week because there will be no rest of the season if he goes down.
4. Austin Reaves not backing down. Reaves is a pretty quiet and low-key dude. If you’ve seen him on Backstage Lakers he’s pretty humble and reserved. Last night he showed his inner fire by getting into it with Josh Green and earning the legendary double-tech. Still, it was a defining moment in the game and showed the heart of the Lakers and the Mavs lack of poise, a trait we showed a lot last season as the losses piled up. Reaves was, by a wide margin, the most impactful player off the Laker bench which didn’t really ever get going
5. Jarred Vanderbilt. Had to save the best for last. No way we can over look this dude’s versatility and tenacity. Pulling down a game-high 17 rebounds (including a career high 8 offensive boards which were key in keeping us in the game), guarding the other team’s best player, scoring efficiently and adding 4 critical steals Jarred was everywhere last night. Far and away my favorite player we traded for, Vanderbilt continued to endear himself to fans and showcase his talents on the biggest stage basketball has: a Laker game. Moving him into the starting line up has so much impact on the quality of overall play on both ends of the floor. Yes, the offensive spacing Malik Beasley creates is important but that doesn’t stymie the best wing or fuel fast breaks with rebounds or keep possessions alive. Jarred changes the game fir the Lakers on both ends of the floor and I wish we had acquired him a lot sooner but I sure glad we have him now. Definitely a keeper.

This win kept any actual playoff hopes alive as it’s quite likely Dallas will be the team we need to leap frog past in order to get there. Dallas had a lot it wanted to prove: that the Kyrie/Luka pairing will work against the best teams (so far the only win has come against the Spurs who are all but trying to lose), get some standings separation and claim the tiebreaker in the same game. With one more game against Dallas on March 17th and each team having won one that will now be decided at a future time and place. That tie breaker could end up being huge. Anyhow, this was the grittiest win I’ve seen us come up with in a long time and it came when it was truly needed. Good stuff. Hope we get D-Lo back to take some pressure off LeBron.