As can often happen in the NBA, the Lakers had a Jekyll & Hyde game. The Lakers defense finally arrived in the road trip, making a rare appearance out of the locker room after halftime. Along with the return of Reaves and another stellar outing from Luka, the Lakers put together a great half of basketball to turn a close game into a solid win. The capper? LeBron has been cleared to practice with the Souty Bay Lakers in order to ramp up and get ready for his season debut.
1) Smart leading with defense. 7 steaks is getting it done. No other way to put it. Tonight was a great example of the best one can expect and hope for out of the vet. 3-7 from three (4-9 overall) with a 2-1 assist ratio is the kind of across the board production we could use more of.
2) Return of Reaves. If it wasn’t apparent to someone last season, it should be now: the Lakers need Reaves. He creates a different type of defensive collapse than does Luka or LeBron can. He creates better lob chances because he sells harder on his drives and forces the defense to pull in faster snd harder. This either opens up a lane for a lob more effectively than it does for Luka and Ayton. He’s drawing fouls or creating quality scoring options kn his drives and it makes the offense work.
3) Luka aka The Don. While I appreciate the sentiment when people call him Luka Magic (because some of that shit is straight mystical) I prefer The Don. First there’s only one Magic (I am recalling how classy Albert Pujols was j. Rejecting all comparisons to the OG MLB Machine, Stan Musiel) but Luka had all the tricks working last night. He scored from all over snd we even got a driving dunk in the lane. The potential for him winning MVP will be one of the season’s enduring plot lines, and a lot of that will resolve based on overall record along with gaudy stat lines, but we needed this version of Doncic to right the ship.
4) Rui returns to form. He finally shot below 50% from the field in the loss, making it a key and stat to track when he got back over 50% in a win. Rui, when he’s aggressive, can completely change the offensive dynamic. When passive it allows his man both to rest in D and lowers his on-court worth. When he’s working his man down, making him defend in an island on the weak-side, he helps create the kind of matchup problems coaches live to exploit. Great bounce back game from Rui.
5) Controlling the glass. I thought the Lakers both improved from the Atlanta game and bumped the effort tip in the rebounding department in the 2nd half. When the other team wants to play more quickly than you, you need to both limit their chances by grabbing defensive rebounds and limit the leak outs in defensive rebounds. The team did well as a collective with Hayes and a Knecht adding 5 boards each off the bench. Good stuff and it’s a battle we need to at least be close in every night.
Aloha Jamie, nice post. However I might have led with Rui. JJ basically gave a lot of credit for that 3rd qtr turn around to him. And not just offensively but defensively as well. He even took the time to break town Rui’s continuing growth as a defender. Rui is shooting at a ridiculous clip. His 58% from the field is among the best non center percentages, amazing for a primarily jump shooter. And he is up to 52% from 3 for the year. It is to point where I am surprised when he misses. I believe he will continue to start when Lebron comes back.