Aloha,

The Dubs blew us out in game 2 so it was only fair that we returned the favor. I was surprised when the Warriors blew us out and frankly I was surprised that we did the same. But it was clear why it happened.

It always begins and ends with AD. We rarely lose when he dominates the game. AD had commented that the last game, he just missed shots he normally makes. And that is true. As a matter of fact he only made 2 more baskets than the game before. But he aggressively attacked the rim and went 11 for 12 from the line. He was 1 for 1 the game before. The Warriors are small and they have no answer for AD when he attacks.

And we saw it on the defensive end as well. The Warriors got off to a good start when AD was staying in his deep drops. Once he began to come up and show on the guards, the game turned around. The one thing that AD can do that most bigs can’t is show on a guard and still drop back and protect the rim. His 4 blocks hardly tell the story. He altered so many more than that and discouraged others from even attempting the shot. If AD can bring this every game the series is over.

LeBron is LeBron again for the 2nd game in a row. There just seems to be more spring in his step and he was super efficient in choosing his spots. I also loved that he only took 4 threes, canning 2. He scored 21 but he didn’t need to score more. And his 8 assists were as important than the points. We have seen LeBron bring it on offense all year but what has impressed me more has been his defense. He has been intense on that side of the ball, rarely taking a play off. He had been our weak link on defense this year. If he defends like this, we are in good shape.

I had commented earlier if we didn’t get good guard play, it didn’t matter how many points AD scored. Well we got good guard play. You could say that it was our guards that opened things up for AD and Lebron. DLO torched them in the first half. I think this opened everything up. And it wasn’t just DLO. Dennis was 3 for 6 from 3 and Lonnie was 2 for 4. We won the 3 point battle 15 to 13 but more importantly on 13 less attempts. 47% from 3 will get it done. And that opened everything up inside. We can’t constantly out shoot the Warriors from 3. But if we can continue to hit a decent percentage the Warriors can’t beat us.

Let’s give coach Ham his flowers. Three big adjustments turned the tide. I already mentioned AD coming out from his deep drops but just as important was putting Vando on Draymond and having AD guard the other Green. The Warriors run everything through Dray and we disrupted their offensive flow. What made this work was our guards defended their butts off. I’m not surprised when Dennis and Austin do it but DLO looked like a defensive stopper last night.

The last move That Coach Ham made was something everyone here had been asking for. He inserted Lonnie into the rotation. I believe I could even hear Buba shouting with joy all the way here in Hawaii. That really changed the offensive dynamic. Now the Dubs had another scorer to worry about on the perimeter. Lonnie was 2 for 4 from 3 but he is much more than that. He is a 3 level scorer with a mid range and he can get to the rim. His reverse layup was a thing of beauty. We know he can score but he also played large on the defensive side of the ball. Not only was he able to hang with the Dubs guards but he had 2 steals and a block as well. I’m hoping that this is the rotation for the rest of the series.

We all know we will have to win on the defensive end. We can’t consistently out gun the Warriors. We also need very good games from LeBron and AD. But we have a real luxury knowing that on any given night we can get big offensive games from DLO, Austin, Dennis, Rui and Lonnie. We don’t need them to all go off but knowing any one of them can, puts more pressure on a Warriors team that isn’t a great defensive team.

Monday is another big game. Like with Memphis, I don’t want to be forced to win another game up north. The Warriors don’t lose many home games. We just need to take care of our home court.

Aloha,

Tom posted an article about the Lakers not needing Kyrie and I completely agree. It got me thinking. If we denounced all of players not under full contracts we would only have around 30 mil. Not enough for Kyrie or building a better team. And the new CBA makes trading for a super star, super hard.

While one can argue that as constructed this roster isn’t championship level, with all the new restrictions, it’s probably the best we can do. Two things that will work in our favor is there is not a lot of money out there this year. Only rebuilding squads have a lot of cap space. The other is the cap will jump 10% the following year due to the new TV deal. Here is where we stand:

Under full contracts
LBJ
AD
Max
That is a combined salary of $95,688,850. See the problem? The projected cap for next year is 132 mil. The projected tax apron is $164 mil. But there is a new wrinkle if you go over the apron by $17.5 mil you lose your MLE. This makes it even harder to spend.

Free agents with bird rights:

DLO
Austin
Rui
Gabriel (early bird rights)
I believe we will retain all 4. With so little cap space out there this is a bad year for DLO to become a free agent. He is too old for the rebuilders. I think 25 to 30 mil will probably get it done. Because of the Arinas rule no one can offer Austin more then 12 mil the first two years. He can be offered a big raise the last two. Austin is not going anywhere. Rui’s current market appears to be $15 to $18 mil. He will also be back. Gabriel won’t be offered a huge amount. He is the perfect energy bench guy for us.

Players with Team options or non guaranteed deals.

Vando
Beasley
Bamba
Shaq Harrison

At a little under 5 mil, Vando is a no brainer. I watched Harrison in the G league. He is a good defender and at a veteran min would be decent end of the bench guy. I have always like Beasley’s game but since coming here he hasn’t given us much. Some guys are just not cut out for the bright lights I guess. Bamba at 10 mil is over paid for what he brings. Both could be cut. They would have to be guaranteed before they can be traded. I’m sure Rob is testing the trade waters now. You can’t trade until your season is over but you can talk.

Guys with no bird right.

Dennis
Lonnie
Troy

All 3 out played their contract. We probably will lose them since we have to fit them into non existent cap space. We could perhaps use the MLE of 7 mil to keep Dennis. He is a very good back up PG and we probably could not do better. We would probably have to cut either Bamba or Beasley in order to have the MLE available.

We have the 17th pick and a mid 2nd round pick available. That’s about 4.5 mil in first year salaries.

There will be 3 two way contracts available this year. That’s great news for the Lakers considering our success at finding hidden gems. Pippin Jr was one of the best G league players last year. I would give him one of the slots, if not an end of the bench slot.

The core I’m sure will be back is
LeBron
AD
Austin
DLO
Rui
Vando
Max
Gabriel

That is a good start but it will be a challenge building a quality 2nd unit. And with LeBron and AD’s injury history a solid bench is a must. We will need:
A quality back up PG( Dennis?)
A solid defensive center
At least one scoring wing

Can we find them with trades? Can we draft a plug and play player at 17 in the draft. Is there a ring chasing vet with a little left in the tank? Can we rehabilitate a young player like we did with Troy and Lonnie?

These are the questions that will have to be answered. The good news is that we haven’t had a quality returning core for some time. Austin, Rui, Max , Vando and Gabriel will all improve. I finally have a good feeling about this team moving forward. It’s been a few years since that was the case.

Aloha,

The Lakers have now exceeded my expectations for this year. When I saw the poorly constructed roster at the beginning of the year I thought that if we could stay healthy and the young guys ramped up their play then maybe we could sneak into the first round. Over all the young guys gave us some good moments but we got stung by the injury bug again. Then came the trades. You have to hand it to Rob. He didn’t panic and waited it out until the right trades materialized.

The adjustments that Coach Ham made are some of the best between game adjustments I’ve seen in a very long time. Of course it was all made possible by the best defensive center in the game. ( sorry triple J )
Only AD has the mobility to jump out and double the pick and roll and still get back to protect the rim. Shrinking the rotation to 8 also was huge. Bringing Gabriel in instead of Troy or Beasley was huge. It gave us 3 players with size to counter JJJ. Even though Gabriel only played 10 minutes it was impactful with a couple of baskets and blocks. I also thought putting Rui on Bane was genius. Rui had a tremendous defensive game. His size really bothered Bane and Rui demonstrated the quickness needed to stay with Bane.

We will only go as far as our defense will take us, but we have the blue print now. Even LeBron, who I have been critical of for only defending in spurts was locked in defensively all night. I think a lot of that is made possible by having 2 playmakers in Austin and Dlo running the show. LeBron is no longer tasked with always having to be the playmaker. I would be remiss if I didn’t mention Vando’s defense on Ja. What a luxury to have a long 6’ 9” player capable of hanging with one of the quickest guards in the NBA.

I believe we can match up defensively with any team moving forward. Our shooting comes and goes but with our transition game and paint points , our defense will keep us in most of the games moving forward. I can see us losing to any of the remaining teams, but for the first time I can see us beating any of them as well.

Aloha,

Another Clippers season, another elimination. Injuries to Kawhi and PG did them in again. And it’s a good thing. If everyone was healthy the Clippers could have run the table. I’m watched the Suns game and I was very impressed by the Clippers role players. I wasn’t to impressed by the Suns. No depth. Spotty defense. I’m not sure they will beat the Nuggets.

Aloha,

That first quarter was something to behold. I can’t recall a playoff game where a team dominated like that. But given the choice of dominating the 1st quarter or the 4th I would take the 4th every time. Because there are no safe early leads in the NBA.

Now the Griz are very good team and I knew that they would make some runs. While I never felt like the game was in danger, I felt we blew an opportunity to really cast some doubt in them. Instead they got close enough by the end to write the game off as just a bad first quarter.

For me the biggest problem was that 4th quarter. We went into the basketball equivalent of football’s prevent defense, way too soon. The Lakers abandoned what got them the big lead before the 4th quarter was even half way played. And Ja was able to make it uncomfortable. Hopefully we don’t do that again.

AD dominated like everyone wanted him too. While his defense has been stellar throughout, it’s his offense that has been choppy. What changed? Well he became decisive with ball and made his moves before the double could arrive. That is the key to AD’s game. He is going to get doubled if he doesn’t act immediately. His only flaw was trying to force baseline a few times when it it wasn’t there. We can go a long way with this AD.

The old geezer had another solid game. He made big mouth Brooks look foolish. And it clearly got into his head. I really didn’t want him getting tossed. Our defense is better when plays. Everyone knows that Brooks is a poor shooter except for apparently him. I don’t even like it when he gets in foul trouble. His defense has not been that disruptive and it’s nice when he’s out there laying bricks.

Rui has been amazing. The kid has the skill and the body to be a star in this league. You can trace his emergence to when coach Ham sat him for a game. It was like last year when Frank sat Malik to send a message. Ham didn’t think Rui was being aggressive enough. Well it worked. It also looks like he adjusted his 3 point shot. It appears to have more arch now. It was really flat before. While I think Rui will be a starter next year I can understand him coming off the bench now. We are not getting much scoring from the 2nd unit. He’s about the only one. But he only got 22 minutes. He should get more than that.

Austin is our Manu Ginóbili. He just makes winning plays. Timely shots. Timely defense. He is always solid.

Does anyone other than myself want to see Lonnie get some run in place of Beasley? Beasley isn’t giving us anything. Lonnie is a good scorer and that 2nd unit needs scoring. At least give the kid a chance to see what he can do.

While I doubt we will see another quarter like the first one, if AD plays with the way he did yesterday, I think we will go back to Memphis up 3-1.

Aloha,

It appears that there is no time table for Kawhi to return and he is out again today. The media fixates so much on AD and Lebrons injuries, yet Kawhi and PG has been hurt as much, if not more. It is clear that the basketball gods do not want the Clippers in LA. Every time they field a contender, they are struck down by injuries.

A healthy Clipper team was actually the team I feared the most in the West but it looks as if the Suns will move on if they can stay healthy. After all they have KD and CP3, neither have been a model of health.

While the Suns starting unit is the best in the NBA, they have no depth. KD and Booker are averaging 43 minutes a game, while CP3 is playing 39. One wonders how far they can advance with those 3 playing heavy minutes. They desperately need a few blow out wins, just to avoid playing their stars into the ground.

Aloha,

Making the 7th seed was huge for this team. Besides the obvious, easier playoff path. Going down the stretch the Lakers looked tired. Yes they kept winning but they were squeaking out wins against 2nd units and generally bad teams. Securing the 7th seed gave them time to rest. As important as the rest was they also gave them practice time. Something this new squad desperately needed. Now we don’t play until Wednesday. More rest. More practice. Considering this team is still learning each other, I think the playoff schedule benefits the Lakers more then any other team in the playoffs.

Aloha

While we were underwhelming against reserves a lot of teams have been. The Kings lost to the Nuggets 2nd unit with all the starters.

The important thing is we are in and at home against the TWolves. It will be interesting to to see what they do with Rudy. Heard on a broadcast that McDaniel broke his hand. He punched a wall. What’s up with these guys throwing punches?

If we get past the TWolves, I like our bracket. The Griz will be without Adams and Clarke so I think we have the edge there. Then we get the winner of the Warriors and Kings. We avoid both the Suns and the Clippers who have had our number. Hopefully we will pick up our energy because we haven’t had much the last few games.

Aloha,

With all the minutes they played last night, I figured the plan was to rest them against up. Still we better be ready. The Nuggets 2nd unit nearly beat the Suns last night and a short handed Jazz team took us to OT, hope that is still fresh in the Lakers mind. While this is a break, we still need to take care of business.

Aloha,

Can you lose even when you win a game. We will see tomorrow night. The Clippers haven’t played since Saturday. We will come in after 4 games on the road on a back to back. This was a game we needed to win early and rest our guys. Instead LeBron, AD and Austin played 42 minutes and Dennis played 38. Even without PG tomorrow will be a challenge.

We scored at will but where was the D?

Austin will be a Laker a long time. No one can offer more then us in the first 2 years and we can match anyone in those last 2 years.

Last year Malik wasn’t going hard enough on defense and Frank benched him. This year Rui got bench a game and he’s been terrific since. His effort on both sides of the ball has been great.

I am really hoping DLO can go tomorrow. Our 2nd really suffers when Dennis has to start. Dennis has filled nicely starting but he is more valuable running the 2nd unit.