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That looked familiar. It was as if, for but a moment, we were back in the playoffs, round 1, and Dame was in a nightmare trapping scenario. Only instead of Rajon Rondo or Danny Green it was Dennis Schroder. Thus endeth the Lakers worst losing streak of the season. We did it wearing a very familiar hat: the one that has a capital D on it.

1. Welcome back Dennis Schroder. We suffered on both ends of the court when Dennis went down. Schroder returned to the Lakers and not a moment too soon. His defense, competitive spirit and moxie were all on full display last night as he was instrumental in bringing flow to our half court offense, relieving some pressure on LeBron, and helping to hound Portland into several miscues during the key stretch in the 3rd when we broke the game open. I’ve been a proponent of handing more of the offense, specifically in the half court when we’re not out on the break, over to Dennis and last night he showed why that makes sense. With the ball in Schroder’s hands it allowed LeBron to either take the spot out on the arc to be a three point safety valve or let Dennis set himself or teammates up for manufactured buckets. Let the point guard do the point guard things, say I. He’ll get better at his forays under the rim a la Steve Nash and he’s no worse from three than anyone else on the team these days (which is to say pretty spotty). But his defensive intensity is a huge cog in the machine that makes this team go and we were the beneficiaries of that last night.
2. Effort cures a lot of issues in sports. Play hard, push the pace, don’t let your foot off the gas. All of those tried and true sport axioms reference effort and we showed a lot more last night than in the 4 previous games. Whether you lose by one at the buzzer or it’s over midway through the 3rd you can hold your head high if you played your hardest and left it all out there on the court. Especially as role player and you don’t play for 30+ mpg. The Lakers showed a lot more hustle on defense and effort in general in the second half and as a result we busted the game wide open. In the first half Dame was splitting double teams with ease, getting into the paint, hitting shots from anywhere he wanted and picking us apart. The second half was an entirely different story. WE trapped Dame, forced others to beat us and won going away. Portland doesn’t have a dynamic inside presence or many guys who create shots by getting into the paint so once we took Lillard away it made Portland’s offense one-dimensional and easy to shut down. A lot of that came from playing with energy.
3. Speaking of energy, more THT. Talen does one thing a lot of other guys don’t: push the pace when he has the ball. Horton-Tucker isn’t content to waltz up the court with the ball, he’ll go one on three or even four, get to the front of the rim and get a shot up. Now, mind you, this is not a career-long method for success in the NBA. THT needs to start to learn 4-5 lessons on both ends (leveling off the ball being numero uno) but I’ll take growing pains from THT just to get his energy on the court. Especially when LeBron sits. WE don’t have nearly the level of defensive experience and playoff/veteran savvy last season’s team had. Not even close. Something that can close the gap is energy. THT and Trezz lead the team in that stat.
4. Speaking of Trezz. Another great game and I’m just about to a place where I think he should start. Anyone who cares to continue to push the theory that he opens the floor or that his positional defense is welcome to expound on your theories but I will politely, but firmly, disagree. Marc just doesn’t have it anymore, I wish he did. I am abig fan of both Gasol brothers, never thought the trade for Pau was as lopsided as most thought and had come around to hoping Marc could carve out a niche on this team. I just don’t see it happening, at least not in the starting line up, Maybe we can get him going against lesser players but in reality I think most second units are built around small ball line ups these days and will just end up running Marc off the floor. If we can’t unlock his passing more than we’ve been able to, if he can’t consistently hit from three when he’s wide open and his impact on the team defense doesn’t improve I don’t see why not starting Trezz doesn’t make more sense. I would say Morris but he’s been pretty terrible on both ends, as well.
5. In closing I want to add this could have easily been our 3rd trap game dropped in a row. We did the job, we didn’t discover a miraculous cure for what ails the team. The warts are still there and plain to see. Three point shooting is an issue, points in the paint against most teams is an issue. Portland is the 2nd worse defense in the NBA, primarily a jump-shooting team and is down more key players than we are. It took a supreme effort in the second half, a playoff level effort, to win the game in the fashion that we did. We lived with the Laker switch through the overtime wins and right into the losing streak we just broke but I don’t think this has shown us anything we didn’t already know. If anything it reaffirms my belief that the type of defense the Lakers seem to want play isn’t really maintainable throughout the regular season, especially one as compressed as this one is. 5 back-to-backs and a lot of travel to the east coast. That is going to sap our strength, tax our endurance and test our resolve. 35 games to play between March 12th and May 16th. The effort and energy we need to play with is going to be harder and harder to come by as the regular season winds along. We need AD back, but we need him back right so when he gets re-evaluated in a couple weeks we have to hope there is nothing but good news from the MRI, from the way his leg responds and how he looks on the court. In my opinion he needs to be as solid as he was in last season’s playoffs for us to have a chance. Maybe even a little bit better, if I’m being honest. We need a lot more from guys like KCP (banged up again last night as he left the game with that hip pointer he took and didn’t return), Markieff Morris (that three point shot must still be in Orlando in the Bubble…) and OG Lakers Alex Caruso and Kyle Kuzma. We need those guys to be more consistent scoring threats, on this team for us to win a 7 game series we need people to perform outside of their roles more. LeBron cannot do it all on his own. We won’t have playoff Rondo. Someone else has to fill the void. Any takers?

Don’t worry, Laker faithful, it’s not all doom and gloom. We’ll see what the ASB does for us, I think we’ll go 2-1 to close out the first half of the schedule and if everything breaks as well as it can we’ll have AD back sometime between the end of March, mid-April at the worst if he has to stay off the court until he clears the docs. At worst well play a half dozen or so games post ASB without AD, at best maybe just one or two. We can withstand that if it means getting him back close to 100%.