Anyone still out there preaching patience? I didn’t think so. The Lakers Road Trip From Hell ended the way so many things have ended for the Lakers this season: with a loss followed by some clichés. We’re well past the point of clichés and moral victories. Team Oxygen gave life to another sub .500 team. If only we could breathe some into ourselves…
- A tale of two AD’s. Davis in the first half? Nigh unstoppable. 6-8 from the floor, 6-6 from the free throw line, 1-1 from three and beasting like we know he can. Second half AD? Borderline non-existent going 2-8 including letting a lob from Westbrook he just let slip through his hands. Add in missing all three free throws, grabbing a meager 5 rebounds overall and you have a recipe for why the Lakers came up short in this game. Davis has a history of pulling a Bilbo Baggins: when the going gets tough, AD magically vanishes. The outliers, at this point, are the times he can find a higher gear and kick into it successfully; like hitting the game-wining three against Denver in The Bubble. When you see his rebounding numbers without a traditional center on the floor it’s kind of amazing. The guy seems to rebound better when there is another big man on the floor. When he’s the main guy down low it’s like he forgets to box out, forgets to jump, or gets stuck on the perimeter guarding a PG on a switch and his man is just rolling hard to the rim. That last knock is for the team and not AD specifically, you gotta cover your big man when he covers for you or else there will be a dunk scored on you in the near future.
- Keep Monk no matter what. The one thing I can say with certainty about this season is that we need to keep Malik Monk on the team at all costs. Come Hell or high water that guy needs to stay in the purple and gold. Monk had a career high as a Laker last night, shot a ridiculous 8-14 from three and hardly got a shot attempt during the last 5 minutes of the game except for a three which got us close again. Frank needs to do better and it’s well past time he started along with LeBron (whenever he comes back), AD and Russ. 5th starter should be match up-based. End of discussion.
- The ever-shrinking THT role on this team. Only problem with that is he’s played his way right out of any meaningful trade scenarios one cares to concoct. At this point I’d basically hold onto him in order to possibly help facilitate a Russ trade this summer, free up cap space to sign Monk, or just wait and see if he plays better in year 4. 14 minutes but he did make most of his shots. However, it’s the defensive end that is the reason for his ever-shrinking minute allotment. THT hasn’t taken a step forward this season as the Lakers banked he would, to the team’s detriment on all fronts.
- Onyeka Okongwu…ALL STAR!!! At least he looked like it down the stretch as he made dunk after dunk after dunk after dunk after…well, you get the picture. 6 straight dunks down the stretch of the 4th quarter most of them with Davis “guarding” him. The Lakers had absolutely zero answers for the Young Okongwu pick and roll or the team failed to box him out and he grabbed an offensive rebound late, as well. Team Oxygen strikes again.
- 11 points given away at the free throw line. Sure, the Hawks and whiny, floppy Trae Young shot 9 more free throws than we did. Doesn’t seem like more free throws taken was what we needed, just needed to make more of the ones we got. Every starter that took one missed one, AD and Russ each missed three. Hard to win on the road when you lose the free throw battle, the points in the paint battle, the rebounding battle, the fast-break points battle and oh wait…we won the three point battle. Whee.
Not gonna lie, just don’t see much getting better until LeBron comes back and even then…I don’t know. This team doesn’t defend very well, maybe they will a little better when healthy but we basically have to outscore our opponents cause we ain’t stopping jack this season. We don’t force bad shots, we sieve points in the paint no matter who plays center, and we can’t get out on the break like we know this team needs to in order to have success because we don’t force turnovers. Trade THT for _________ who makes $10ish million? OK, sure, feels like a lateral move unless it’s for a solid center who can let AD slide (slink at this point) back to the 4. We don’t need a volume three point shooter who won’t defend any better than guys we already have, we need help in the paint to stem one of the three major areas we hemorrhage points from. To me that means a center, I don’t give a fig if he can shoot a three pointer or not. That is not why we need them or what this team needs more of. We need defense.