And so it shall be. No bracket wackiness, no losing to win, just steel on steel and may the best team win. This was my personal preference not only because there are no guarantees but because why wait? We won’t have home court unless the Bulls go all the way and we meet in the NBA Finals, the earlier round gets the most rest between games and we can get to Denver a couple days early so the team can acclimate (I believe they leave today for the Saturday game). Injuries to Butler and Caruso during their respective playin games show that nothing planned is set in stone. So why wait? Bring on the pain.

1. Live with Jokic’s greatness. Nobody will stop him, nobody will contain, he will put up great numbers so you have to focus on making it as difficult as possible. AD hasn’t been great against him, Rui can (in theory) hold his own in terms of playing face up D but that leaves us vulnerable to back cuts an quick hitting actions. My potential solution? Have LeBron guard Jokic. LeBron won’t get moved around, has the smarts and hops to affect his jumpers, and it allows Rui to focus on either MPJ or Gordon and AD to focus on being elite at defending the rim. This will give up a lot of mid-range shots and that is by design because you want to get them off the three point line and you don’t want them slicing for easy lay ups. Last season LeBron’s foot didn’t make this a viable strategy so maybe, with slightly better health, he can be the Jokic Affector we need (nobody stopping the dude, don’t use the term, it’s like Ruben Patterson calling himself a Kobe-Stopper which was #$%&ing laughable).
2. Neutralize Aaron Gordon. He was a surprise in last season’s playoffs and kept doing the exact same damage against us all season long. the lakers need to respect that he has sacrificed a lot of role to be an elite 4th or 5th option. That may sound like a small thing but I assure you it is not. Gordon has a habit of getting timely offensive rebounds and canning late three pointers, this cannot be allowed to happen. Rui, or whomever ends up on him, needs to respect his shot but keep him off the glass.
3. Make life miserable for Jamal Murray. If we can force Murray into tough shots and make him play defense it will help reduce his impact in the 4th quarter. Murray often lies in the weeds until crunch time, content to let the game play out until it’s time to step up and make some big shots out of set actions. Set an aggressive defensive tone on him early and don’t stop, I would even rather send him to the line than get hot from three. Knock him down, hit him on screens, make him work on defense.
4. Don’t get out-coached. Just…just don’t. Don’t lose faith in DLo, let him play his way out of his contract and let that fall where it may. Don’t get stuck on what worked for maybe a game and a half last season (Rui on Jokic) and expand your mind on what defending a multi-tool center can look like. Use Hayes, who should end up with 4 fouls and maybe a flagrant almost every game (that’s based on what constitutes a flagrant 1 nowadays), and use him more than maybe you think you should. Same goes for Vincent. I like Dinwiddie but if he’s not scoring Vincent is the better option. Take that step, Coach Ham, I think you got it in you, man.
5. The process of beating this team is almost sure to come with trials and pain. So learn the lesson of the last 8 games and execute at the highest level. If we execute well we can hang. I can live with Denver winning off of a H.O.R.S.E. shot or 4. I cannot abide death by 1,000 back door cuts. Clean up the mistakes, don’t get lost in the moment, use that Calm app or whatever LeBron uses to still his thoughts and focus on the game and get this done.

The Lakers improved on last season’s overall regular season record (2022-23 was 43-39, 2023-24 is 47-35 a 4 win improvement which ain’t bad considering everything that happened this season) and it’s a fair argument that, without an incredible series of injuries to all but 3 or 4 major players, it could have been even better. Still, what did that get us? We didn’t get the 7th seed, we got the 8th. The rest of the West got a lot better, or consistent, and it showed in our conference record (27-25, identical to last season when we had a chemistry and talent-fit issues abound along with serious injuries to AD and LBJ). So, all things considered, I have to say this Laker team is better than last season’s and that running it back in the manner that we did was as good of a choice as could have been made. So now, the part that really matters, the playoffs as another regular season bits the dust.

1. The Good. Top of the good list is the overall health of LeBron and AD. While LBJ has been dealing with a balky ankle he still is moving a lot better at this point than he was last season when he had the foot strain injury. As a result LBJ is playing at a higher level than at the same time last season. You can see it on both ends. AD, other than his face being target practice for defender’s hands, has also had a relatively injury free season best reflected by his now career high games played, 76 (previous high was 75 twice as a Hornet/Pelican). These two playing as well and as much as they have allowed us to push through the myriad injuries that plagued pretty much the rest of the roster at some point or another all season long. The All Star of availability though simply must go to Austin “82 Games Played” Reaves. Of all the players coming into camp who had questions about how they would get through the regular season I’m not sure anyone was as scrutinized as Reaves who played for Team USA last summer and looked like he wore down towards the end. Awesome accomplishment in the era of load management from all 3.
2. The Bad. Obviously the injuries. I hate this excuse but this season it just seemed to affect every aspect of the team being able to come together. however i will add that I feel it’s impact was amplified by extremely questionable choices in player rotations and minutes distribution. The biggest issue being the continued under-utilization of Rui Hachimura and the use of Taurean Prince in questionable defensive matchups. I actually am find of TP, I like how he isn’t content to hoist up threes and will attack the rim when the defense gives up the lane. But he cannot guard power forwards or most guards. Will he try? Of course, everyone who is on the floor generally does indeed try. He’s just not very good at it. Rui, however, can defend over his weight class. Pair him with some decent perimeter defenders and AD and you have a blueprint for defensive success. Like Hayes he took the critique the coaches had for him to heart and his increased his focus on rebounding the ball. He’s one of our best players and needs to be on the floor when the game natters unless he’s been shown he can’t hang against a specific matchup.
3. The Ugly. Honestly, nothing ever got too ugly this season. Nothing like the last couple weeks of the Westbrook Experiment. If anything the ugly comes this summer when D’Angelo Russell, and maybe Hayes, opt out and leave us with roster issues and not many means to resolve them. Lakers need to convince to DLo to opt-in and extend him. Might need to do something similar with Hayes, not sure what the money w can offer either is at this time. Both are solid in their specific roles and Hayes still has a lot of upside. These are all questions for the regular season. Honorable “Ugly” mention would also be the month after the playin victory
4. Thoughts on the season. Coach Ham has taken a lot of flak without getting credit for pushing the guys to improve. Injuries affected his plans, he may have been slow to adapt but I think he did (eventually) adapt. Some have called for his firing, I don’t see it happening in 2024. If we turn the year over and 2025 starts rough…maybe? I think there are too many baked in excuses for this season, the guys have responded to his benching’s and earned spots that better suit their salary and role. Winning the playin matters to Jeannie, for her it is not a meaningless accomplishment like it is to most fans and the media. Add-in the improved record over last season’s team and it’s hard to see the FO canning Ham over injuries and a few questionable minute distribution snafus.
5. Thoughts on the playoffs. Personally, I had been asking to face Denver in the first round of the playoffs for a couple months now. While it is possible we move to 8th and could face off against OKC and the winner of Minnesota/Phoenix I prefer facing Denver right off the bat. There’s no getting away from playing on their home court so why not deal with it before playing in 2 or 3 grueling playoff series? I would put LeBron on Jokic. We need AD to be an elite paint protector and that role is compromised when he’s playing Jokic up around the top of the key. I would put Hachimura on Gordon and make him earn those rebounds. We need Rui to play at Gordon’s level to take us to the next level, especially with Vando being out.

Let’s do this!

More than just a single game was at stake last night. The Lakers had a chance to move up in the standings, win the season series (and thus tie-breaker) against the Kings, and continue to show that the inconsistent play that has come to define this season was well and truly behind them. None of that happened as the Lakers quickly surrendered a 19 point lead and never really got close after that due to defensive breakdowns and an overall lack of intensity on that end. They did make a lot of shots but it didn’t really matter because we let the Kings make more. A lot more.

1. It’s always going to come down to defense. Always. We shot over 50% overall, over 40% from three, and we took more than twice the number of free throws as the Kings did. Every starter scored in double-figures and we had 25 assists on 42 makes, better than a 50% ratio for scores off the pass. The offense is not the problem. The defense? Not NBA playoff caliber, not without at least one of Cam or Vando in the current schemes. If we’re counting on 39 year old James to maintain a high degree of effort and energy on that end we are fooling ourselves. AD cannot do everything and when he sits, or got into foul trouble like last night, we sink faster than a mob boss wearing concrete shoes. Guys like DLo, Reaves (who was unable to stay in front of the quicker Fox after holding his own against the slightly slower SGA) and Prince need to be better.
2. Go big. The small ball lineups for the Lakers, as can currently be deployed, simply do not work. We give up too many rebounds, don’t play a smart or good enough brand of defense and the scoring doesn’t offset what we give up. I get it that Taurean Prince is Coach Ham’s long lost step son or whatever but line ups since Hayes found a new level defensively perform better than our small ball lineups that don’t have Cam or Vando. If injuries are going to constantly be used as the most pathetic excuse since Gen. Colin Powell talking roaming RV chemical weapon labs in Iraq as a justification for that invasion than the coach and his staff need to do a better job of believing their eyes, the stat sheet, and W/L record and adjust to the new reality. That reality is a bigger lineup that features Hayes, James and AD. You can play TP at the 2 with Dinwiddie if he’s the second coming or what have you but to continue to bang your head up against a wall that produces ineffective results is asinine and silly.
3. AD struggles against bigs from across the pond. Be it Nurkic, Jokic or Sabonis AD has a lot of issues staying out of foul trouble against players with superior fundamental skills than American bigs. This isn’t so much of an issue now but come playoff time it will be unless we somehow only play the Thunder, Warriors and…well…after that there ain’t no more teams that feature American centers, really. Not sure what it is but AD needs to figure that one out and play better defense without fouling.
4. Points in the paint cannot be lost for us to be able to win. We can’t become a jump shooting team because it allows a team like the Kings to murder us in the paint. The team and the coaches just need to be a lot smarter in this department and not get baited into the open jump shot the defense is obviously happy with you taking. We need to drive, drive, drive the ball to the rim and attack. We were getting to the line but when we settled for bad shots we gave up fastbreak points.
5. Couple that with our offensive rebounding issues (season long) and that’s where we lost the game. Offensive rebounds create some of the easiest shots in the game. We give up a lot of them. Small ball doesn’t work the way we play it. See 5 Things #2.

Big test tonight against the surging Bucks, need to reassert our dominant selves and not let what worked early in the season obfuscate what has been better of late. The defense better show up or I don’t think this one will be very close at all.

I blame LakerTom. On our podcast yesterday Tom and I mused about how we had turned the quarter on the bad 1st quarter curse that the lakers had struggled with most of the season. Whoops. So thanks a lot LT! I kid of course, but the issue returned in a big way and at the worst time.

1. Wheels turning round and round indeed. The Lakers just can’t seem to build anything sustained this season. In a season where the only consistent has been inconsistency the following stats are indicative of how utterly mediocre the Lakers have been in 2023-24. They have not put together a winning streak longer than 4 games all season long. This has been done 38 times by multiple teams all of which are in contention and even some, like the Hornets, who are not. We are currently 18th in offensive rating and 16th in defensive rating. 16th in total wins. This is a middle of the pack team, has been all season long, and there are few, if any, indications that this will be changing any time soon.
2. Some guys didn’t take AD’s message to heart. Russell, Rui and Reaves (my three R’s) are all playing like they enjoyed the break. DLo needs to get greedier, 14 shots when you’re shooting like he was is not enough. We needed DLo, and desperately need every game, to take 20 shots. Anything less deserves a stern finger-wagging from the coach. Reaves and Rui need to rebound better and make the hustle plays. They’re the grit guys until we get Cam or Vando back and they need to get down and dirty even if we’re fully healthy. Rui, who tends to disappear when the rebound goes up and not do, well, much of anything except stand there has to start making 10 rebounds a nightly goal. Get greedy on the glass and it will have a direct and dynamic impact on winning. I am singling out Hachimura because, were he to put his mind to it, I feel he could be a really good rebounder. Just needs to box out and track the shot better. Reaves being a glue guy needs to walk the finest line. Do I need to shoot more, pass more, or just make grit plays. The answer my good fellow is all three. Every night. For forever (ok, just until you retire).
3. Spencer looks more lost as the games go on. Not sure what the coaches had him work on over the All Star Break but it’s not working. On offense we’re not letting him be his best self where he’s making plays to guys for easy scores. With no Gabe Vincent on the horizon it’s imperative we get some kind of backup guard support from either Dinwiddie or Max, best would be a lil something from both.
4. Blaming the refs? Please. Look, there was a huge disparity (big enough to account for the amount of points we lost by) but there are just so very many other reasons we lost this game. Let’s start with the most obvious to me and that’s the rebounds. Nurkic made more hustle plays than the Lakers as a team combined. 54-31 rebounding edge to the Suns is all you really should be looking at and the 14 to 3 difference on the offensive glass tells an even more complete story. The bench, those that got to play more than 6 minutes…was a non-factor on the glass. That can’t happen. Durant alone matched the Laker bench in rebounds. Some of that is Ham went away from Hayes in favor of more Prince minutes. Some of that was because of the craptastic first quarter but a good coach doesn’t just coach the moment, he coaches the team and if you’re getting murdered on the glass it’s not really fair to expect the dude you station 30 feet out all the time who is not a good rebounder to begin with to take up the slack. FWIW the difference in fouls was just 14-12, Lakers took that stat by 2. So it was as much the timing of the fouls as anything else. Sad excuse no matter how you frame it.
5. I’m-a-gonna keep saying it until it sinks in: offense alone is not enough. The defensive intensity has to come up, especially with the guys we have out. We scored with great efficiency last night: 52.2% from the field overall, 42.9% from three. Those are not sustainable numbers for this team and they will not impact winning as expected when the defense fails to come up to the same level. If we’re waiting for the injured players to come back and fix this then the coach and front office has failed already. It can’t be just one or two players, although they do make a big difference. Boxing out isn’t a one man job. Fighting for loose balls isn’t a one man job. Everyone needs to stop whining to the refs about non-calls, we look more like Devin Booker these days than Kobe and that’s sad to type. Go talk to the ref and throw your hands up on your own time and get you ass back in the play. AD can’t be the only one giving his all on D and that’s what is happening now.

Doesn’t get any easier on Wednesday with an “away” game against the Clippers. These are the teams we need to prove ourselves against. So far we’re looking like a C/C+ team. Mediocre.

Well, here we are. The ASB, trade deadline and ASG (mercifully the latter) are behind us. While it would be wrong to call this the home stretch (that feels like it should the last 10 or so games) we have come to a defining stretch of games for this Lakers team. Again. With a slew of solid opponents but playing mostly at home the Lakers have yet another opportunity to distinguish themselves from the Playin herd and break into the Playoff pack. In short, it’s business time.

1. A defining moment for The Three R’s. Russel, Reaves and Rui in that specific order. Each has had their moment to shine and each has had some stretches of truly dud-style play. We need each of them to rise up to the level that gave the front office a reason to hand them a big money deal last summer. For the remainder of games, regular and playoff, we need these three to be the best versions of themselves. That means Russell needs to stay aggressive and hunt his own shot like he has been. That means Reaves needs to keep being one of the best glue guys in the association. That means that Rui needs to play with both power and grace like we know he can. It’s imperative that they take, and hopefully make, the open three point shots the offense creates for them fairly naturally. It’s also imperative that they make their presence at least felt on the defensive end. Most importantly they need to stay on the floor so no more injuries, especially for Hachimura whose season has been defined as much by his availability as his on court impact.
2. AD and LBJ just need to keep on playing. Not for any awards but because we have little hope of winning when they’re both out. Against some teams we can have one of either James or Davis out, although our defense takes a mighty big step back when AD is out, We can ill afford either one to go down with a serious injury and miss extended time. So I’m all in favor of an extra day or 3 for LBJ to try and get that ankle as right as it can get. Both guys might need a maintenance day here or there, especially with five more back-to-back games on the schedule. It’s on the rest of the squad to man up and fill the shoes as much as they can when one of their star players needs to tune up because we ain’t going anywhere in the playoffs with out them.
3. Speaking of health we could use some good luck moving forward in that regard. I hate excuses, everyone in the locker room is an excellent basketball players by the standards of planet Earth and needs to put their best foot forward on the daily. Even I can see what effect injuries have played on how this season has gone thus far. So with that it’s welcome news hearing that Cam and Max should be available tonight, that we should hear something in the next week or two regarding Vincent. It’s not so great hearing Wood is out with a knee issue and we know LeBron is just getting his mind and body as right as he can. I find it no small coincidence that, should LeBron miss exactly one game around each back-to-back remaining, he would still fall within one game of qualifying for the All NBA, MVP, etc. awards at season’s end. Gives him a one game buffer in the event the final game doesn’t really matter standings-wise.
4. We need to figure out how to squeeze more out of the small forward position. Taurean Prince, Rui Hachimura, Jarred Vanderbilt, and Cam Reddish have all given it a go. In my opinion the best fit is likely going to be out for awhile longer, if not the whole season. If that’s the case and Vando’s season is in the books already we need to focus on how to maximize the contributions of our remaining small forwards. I like Prince as a stabilizer off the bench but expect him to get the starting nod coming out of the break. While I prefer he and Dinwiddie coming into the game together with either Hayes or Wood to bring a veteran presence to the second unit that’s high on execution I can easily see Coach ham turning to his most durable player down the stretch. If Hachimura gets the nod I think that allows the Lakers to bring in the best mix of defense and offense and if they wanted to tilt more towards the defensive side I could see Cam getting the nod, just not after this lengthy time off recovering his ankle. We saw the same thing happen last season with LW4 in that he had to re-crack his way into playing time after months off dealing with a bum ankle. Currently Hachimura is listed as the starter and so here’s hoping that sticks. You just never can tell with our coach, though.
5. Define yourself, don’t let the opponent define you. AD hinted at the team (finally) discovering it’s identity. Defense-induced transition, paint points and efficient, in the flow threes. While you can’t control how many times you get to the free throw line you can make it a point to attack the defense and put yourself in the position to be rewarded with free throws. That does not mean hunting contact but rather attacking the rim and overly aggressive perimeter defenders. Where the lakers need to re-commit themselves is on the defensive end. Relying on AD is fine and good but augmenting his elite defense with NBA-average defensive effort will help the Lakers immensely. Finding another gear above average has the potential to transform the Lakers into something elite, although I’m not sure we can get there sans Jarred Vanderbilt.

All in all the season has been mostly defined by missed opportunities in a one step forward, two steps back kind of way. If we can change that, not go 6-4 over the next 10 but go something 8-2 we can start to redefine our season and maybe move up in the standings, too. Need to show we can beat Denver, the Suns and the Clippers in the next few games. You know they’ll be gunning for us. let’s do this. Go lakers.