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Markieff Morris

5 Things: Lakers end on a high note

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The Lakers kept a lid on Trae Young, didn’t allow any of the non-stars to play like one, and Anthony Davis was unstoppable on the block and from distance as the Lakers beat Atlanta and set their sights for Los Angeles.

  1. Vogel sticking with what works. The short rotation was back and the result was another W. Might not see Wes or ‘Kieff save for back-to-backs or if someone needs a rest day. Maybe they just want to try and get a practice in and iron out the issues they’ve seen in the film room. Regardless the same 9 guys who played in Boston finished the roadie by beating the Hawks. This rotation has a lot of defense and selfless play to it and I have a hard time coming up with reason why Frank ought not to go with it.
  2. Laker defense fueled our offense and helped give us a big advantage in fast break points. That advantage may well have helped swing the game in our favor. On a night where Clint Capella was a man on a mission and our own transition defense couldn’t quite get a handle on the transition three game the young Hawks play we were able to get key stops and get easy buckets as a result.
  3. Anthony Davis is fine. He hit shots on the block, lob dunks, hooks and step back jumpers from everywhere. He didn’t make a three and the Lakers struggled from that distance all night, but AD had that shot falling and nobody on Atlanta could get him off his game. Inspired effort from AD.
  4. KCP’s continued struggles and how he’s going to get out of them. You could tell from the get go the Lakers wanted to get Caldwell-Pope going. They force fed him jumpers, tried to find him on the break, and mainly seemed to make a little extra effort to involve him in the offense. While he didn’t respond with the best game of his career he did shoot 50% from three and was solid on D. The only way you get out of a slump is to keep shooting, playing hard, and filling your role to the best of your abilities.
  5. The bench mojo. I like this version of the Laker bench for a lot of reasons. Kuzma is playing so cool, so within himself. If he gets minutes he produces, if he only plays 19 minutes he does what he can with the minutes he gets and moves on to the next one. Kuzma is becoming a pro before our very eyes. Caruso kind of came in with a pro mentality but it took his game a lot longer to get the minutes it needed to show what it can be. It’s defense and smart offense. No flash, no highlights (for the most part) just tough defense and make the play in front of you. Trezz is like the living embodiment of a body blow. he just punishes you inside mercilessly.

Day off, maybe a practice. Tough one against Denver on Thursday, Jokic comes into town with a decent MVP campaign hype machine in tow and playing out of his mind. The Nuggets are tough and will be looking for a little playoff payback. Here’s hoping we hold our own and get a W at home for once.

5 Things: The Dreaded “Switch”

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You know the one I’m talking about. The one that all, and I do mean all, sporting teams utilize when they look down on an opponent. The one that allows for little mental mistakes, half-hearted effort, and sleepwalking through quarters (or innings or rounds). The Lakers have been living with that switch a lot this season and, of late, it’s been coming back to bite them.

  1. Unforced turnovers. As a team the Lakers are averaging a little over 14 turnovers per game. That’s too many and it’s one of many little things that have added up to some of our tougher losses. James is right around his career average (3.6 for the season, 3.5 for his career), as are all most of the key Lakers. It’s not so much the number but the manner in which they are created. The Lakers are a team with many new faces and even the old ones are being asked to fill different roles on this incarnation. I expect that, when the games matter more, the screws will be tightened a tad.
  2. The disappearing, re-appearing KCP. The Lakers rewarded KCP for his troubles with a 2 year, $16.5 million deal this summer. He’s come out this season, like others as a Laker, a little flat. His numbers are right in line for his career. That’s good and I’ve always thought of Kentavious as a slow starter. With such a short turnaround it’s expected the guys who were here last season are going to have some dead leg days. But what I find more of an issue are his almost career low shot attempts thus far. The good thing? He’s making a creer high of them from everywhere. Therefor reason stands that the Lakers need to work to get KCP open more often, get him a couple more shots and keep him engaged.
  3. The issues at center. This is not a condemnation of Marc Gasol, frankly the issue might be that we’re not playing Marc enough as he’s averaging a career low in minutes played (19.5) which has resulted in other career low numbers across the board. The bigger issue is Anthony Davis who plays plenty of minutes per game is also averaging career lows in key stats, as well. His scoring, rebounding and blocks are all down. A lot of that might be the same ‘dead legs’ from the turnaround and the season being as early as it is this is certainly an incomplete portrait of what his season will end up looking like. Having said that, as it currently stands AD will not be in the running for any of the major benchmark awards this season. We need AD to be a little more aggressive, poised and focused for us to climb that mountain to bring home another banner.
  4. Unlocking the best version of Dennis Schroder. This one’s a conundrum, his numbers are right about where they were last season, his three point shooting is down. Maybe it’s a matter of adjusting to playing off LeBron along with a whole new team, who knows. It just feels like there’s more for him to bring to the table. Just a feeling, I guess.
  5. Learning the lesson from a loss. Last season’s squad was pretty damned adept at taking the good from the bad. They won the second game after losses in back-to-backs, were stellar on the road and in the Bubble, and didn’t lose 2 in a row until the seeding games which I hoped were more for tuning up than establishing an identity. This team hasn’t shown me that ability to take the good from the bad, yet. I couldn’t begin to fathom why that is: lack of hunger since we just won, the audacity and difficulty in repeating, the new guys. Whatever the case may be this Laker team lacks some of the fire we saw last year. i hope they find the spark.

The loss to Philly ought to have been a lesson in full game effort and buttoning up the little things. The Pistons game was the inspiration for this post. An unforgivable second half team wide absence of heart or spirit. No movement, no grit, nothing that showed us the team’s identity we grew accustomed to. So let’s hope that game is the wake up call (hopefully the only one) this team needs to work these nitpicky kinks out and reestablish their dominance. Go Lakers.

5 Things: Lakers defeat Bulls, 9-0 on the road

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The Lakers have opened up their “Grammy” trip with back-to-back road wins staying unbeaten away from STAPLES. An impressive feat, one that continues last season’s trend and their Bubble play and highlights the Lakers’ “bunker mentality”. While the Bulls are not the Bucks they are no walk in the park, either. They came into the game on a winning streak and are in the hunt for a playoff berth. Let’s dig in.

  1. Lakers bread and butter. Also known as Anthony Davis and LeBron James. When both of them have a good to great game the Lakers are a tough team to beat. Simple as that. When one, or rarely both, struggle the game becomes difficult for us to win. Not impossible, which is a testament to the rest of the team, but certainly more difficult. They’ve both been pretty locked in since letting the win against the Warriors slip through their fingers. Tonight Davis took the spotlight and shined the brightest in a return to city of his birth, Chicago.
  2. The Laker defense is back, different but back. The first half was like watching Nate Robinson in the boxing ring: an outclassed opponent getting beaten up on for a little too long. Give the Bulls credit, they surged in the third but then the bench came in with some better focus and was able to protect the big lead all the way through. I consider that, when the scrubs are in, if the other team doesn’t run it down from a 15-20 point lead to single digits that the bench has done a great job defensively. It got close but they kept it above 10.
  3. Laker turnovers of the unforced variety. Still too many, way too many. At least three Lakers (definitely AC and LBJ) simply dribbled the ball off of their own feet and out of bounds. Toss in one of the worst entry passes Talen Horton-Tucker will ever throw and some lazy post entries the Lakers definitely have one area of the game they can focus on in practice: valuing the basketball to a higher degree.
  4. Coming back down to Earth. Across the board the Lakers are starting to come back down to Earth from three. While I was hoping that Caruso would continue his nova hot start from three, that Kuzma would rediscover his rookie stroke and that guys like Wes Matthews and Schroder would light it up the team as a whole are trending towards the mean. Not unexpectedly. We’re on the road, these guys aren’t historically knockdown shooters, and the Lakers aren’t designed to be an elite three point shooting team. The good thing is they continue to dominate in the hustle and heart stats which easily overcame a 4-19 showing from three tonight.
  5. But Jamie you missed the Bucks game. Yeah, I know. That was a great game, too, one of LeBron’s best this season. After a hot start by Giannis the Lakers settled in and played their game for the last 3 quarters. They have similar weaknesses as last season: who finishes the game since GA can’t shoot free throws? The one dimensionality of a Giannis-led offense. Not enough play makers. Should the Lakers and Bucks meet in the NBA Finals I would take the Lakers in 5, if both team rosters remain unchanged and in good health.

5 Things: Lakers let down in the 4th, Warriors win

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This was a solid “test” game for the Lakers. We’d been beating up on under-talented or imploding teams, as we should be doing, and hadn’t faced a true test since much earlier in the season. While the Lakers didn’t win, thus in some ways ‘failing’ the test, nothing I saw last night derails my thinking that we are the team to beat. In the end, this was a bigger win for Golden State than it was a big loss for LA.

  1. Second half sputter. We had a poor overall showing in the second half. Didn’t score well, allowed the 2nd unit for the Warriors to eat into a big chunk of our lead and had some major defensive breakdowns. These are all fixable. Our transition D and get-back was poor last night, just one of the reason Golden State almost equaled us in points in the paint, done largely without budding star James Wiseman who played a scant 13 minutes due to foul trouble. The coaches will go over the film and the breakdowns will be mitigated or resolved altogether.
  2. Poor three point shooting. Just didn’t have the tough from distance. It happens but on a night when Steph wasn’t Steph it would have been nice to can just one more. LeBron will talk to Kentavious, he’ll let fly with more ease but everyone of the starters struggled from three point land. Plenty of blame for them to share, as they say.
  3. Stu’s Rule: no new superstars. We utterly failed on this letting Eric Paschal shake loose for 19 points (on 11 shots), the struggling Kelly Oubre Jr. to go off for 23 and third option Andrew Wiggins to pour in 18 (on 11 shots). Too much efficient shooting from guys we need to lock down. Credit the Warriors, though, for sticking with their game plan, hitting the open man and those guys for hitting some timely shots.
  4. Anthony Davis and his season long struggle from the stripe. It’s no secret Davis is starting slow, slower than LeBron James. While I sort of expected his defense and overall aggressiveness to take a small hit due to the quick turnaround, his free throw shooting was literally the last thing I expected to see suffer. Especially to the degree that it has so far this season. While he is shooting 75% that is down from his career 80.1% he’s shot for his career and well below his personal best 84.6% he made last season. I doubt he’ll be able to replicate that lofty percentage but he needs to get back on track. AD wasn’t alone, though, we missed some key freebies down the stretch that could have altered the complexity of the game.
  5. No home crowd. We’re seeing a strange, though not wholly unexpected, trend in the NBA this year: no home crowd leading to home team let downs. It sure seemed to effect the Lakers last night and our home record reveals the season long struggles we’ve had winning in an empty STAPLES. As vaccinations roll out I hope the league takes every precaution to maintain everyone’s safety and well-being but man would it be nice to have at least some people cheering the purple and gold on at home. That being said, we’re heading out on the road again for 7 games so we should be good to go. It’s also led to some odd refereeing, I believe, as the intensity is always bland which is an extra hurdle during the regular season.

It’d be easy to say everything that we saw last night will be fixed with time or a couple film sessions and practices. But one thing that troubled me was how ineffective our small ball was against Golden State’s version. This may be partly attributed to the fact we played the team that made small ball a thing but it should be a cause for alarm as the Warriors show everyone that the fork isn’t needed and please don’t stick it in, we’re nowhere near done, yet. Still, all things being as they are, I’ll take the Lakers in 7 over anyone right now. Go Lakers.

Why the Los Angeles Lakers Envision Anthony Davis as a Stretch Five Center

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At the heart of the Lakers’ vision for the future is Anthony Davis as a stretch five center. That’s why Frank Vogel wants him to shoot more threes per game and why the Lakers dumped traditional centers McGee and Howard.

While the Lakers don’t want Davis to endure the physical wear-and-tear of playing traditional low post centers in the paint, they clearly understand they’re at their best as a team when he is playing the five instead of the four. The stats and the eye test confirm this so the Lakers’ goal is to figure out how they can play him at the five for more minutes or even all of the time. Part of the answer is for Anthony Davis to become more of a stretch five.

While old school traditionalist complain that takes Davis away from the basket and dilutes his impact on offense, the reality is AD is best in space, where he can use his handle and gravity as a shooter to attack defenses. Playing Davis like a traditional low post center on offense presents the same problems as having him defend more rugged opposing centers in the paint. He’s more of a finesse player like Kareem than a power player like Shaq.

Instead, the Lakers have a vision for Anthony Davis where he is a stretch five on offense and a roaming defensive free safety and help rim protector on defense, which requires pairing him with bigs that complement him. Offensively, he needs a big who can stretch the floor like Gasol or Morris to create spacing to attack. Defensively, he needs a big like Morris or Harrell with the size and strength to hold their ground against opposing centers.

While the Lakers will miss McGee’s and Howard’s rim protection, they learned in the playoffs that traditional low post centers who clog the paint on offense and can’t guard on the perimeter on defense were unplayable. Ideally, the Lakers need a modern center like Indiana’s Myles Turner, who can stretch the floor on offense and protect the rim and guard the perimeter on defense. That may be the Lakers’ top priority going forward.

Meanwhile, the Lakers decided Marc Gasol and Montrezl Harrell would be better solutions to complement Anthony Davis than JaVale McGee or Dwight Howard as they obviously did not want to bring back either of them. Gasol has good 3-point shooting and playmaking ability but may not be able to defend in the paint or on the perimeter. Harrell, while undersized, has a mid-range shot and the energy and athleticism to be a plus defender.

While we’ve only played two regular season games, Gasol has struggled to have an impact while Harrell has been even better than the Lakers had hoped, providing relentless hustle and energy at both ends of the court. Hopefully, Gasol will start to play better though he could become this season’s JaVale McGee, who starts the first and third quarters. So far the best solution may be Harrell and Morris sharing time alongside Davis.

We’ve seen the same pattern so far in the Lakers’ first two games when Marc Gasol goes to the bench. Davis plays the five on offense but it’s Harrell or Morris who defend the opposing team’s center, leaving Davis to roam. It’s the perfect strategy to optimize Davis at both ends of the court with minimal wear-and-tear. Offensively, he operates best facing up his opponent in space. Defensively, he plays best as a help defender and shot blocker.

Right now Morris does a better job than Harrell defending the opposing team’s center but expect Trezz to become better as he becomes acclimated to the role and learns how to take advantage of playing alongside Anthony. While Harrell does not have the 3-point shooting stroke to stretch the defense like Morris does, he has his own gravity as a rebounder and shooter who can hit mid-range jumpers from the baseline and complement Davis.

For now, Frank Vogel will continue to encourage Anthony Davis to shoot the three ball and Markieff Morris and Montrezl Harrell will continue to defend opposing centers when Lakers go ‘small’ and AD becomes a stretch five. That’s why all the worry about the Gasol’s slow start and the Lakers letting McGee and Howard walk aren’t important in the short or long term. The Lakers have their plan for the future and it’s Anthony Davis as a stretch five.