5 THINGS

The Lakers will be the road team no matter what path they take in these playoffs, not even if we meet fellow playin team the Miami Heat in the NBA Finals. Thus it behooves them to get really comfortable winning a road playoff game and doing so early in the series to keep the pressure on the other team. This was, once again, accomplished last night as the Lakers found the defensive grit and overall tenacity to beat the Warriors in game 1 at Chase Center and take home court advantage for themselves. The work, however, is only beginning.

1. The James Gang is apt because this ain’t no one-man show. LeBron James will not be putting the Lakers on his back like he’s done with so many other squads in his lengthy career. In what can only be described as a mediocre (for him) showing from LeBron we still won the game. In the playoffs. On the road. LeBron still had a tremendous impact on the game but was neither efficient nor the best player on the floor. I’m sure there are a few incredible games left in LeBron, and hopefully they come in wins, but these NBA playoffs (and frankly since he passed Kareem) have shown a LeBron who is starting to decline in small ways. Luckily he now has a James Gang to support him and help him on his journey.
2. Anthony Davis and all the torch talk. Personally I still see this as a partnership between two superstars whose bodies aren’t their best friends. Still, if there is a torch being passed from LeBron to AD this season it’s also changing the appearance of the torch. The new torch is a defensive monster who outplayed Golden State’s front line almost single-handedly. The new torch is a shot blocking beast who altered even more than the stats will reveal. The new torch doesn’t rely on threes or fadeaways (although they are technically in the bag) but on abusing opponents in the paint and at the rim. Last night AD made history by joining the likes of Shaq, Kareem, Wilt and Elgin Baylor as the only Lakers to have scored 30+ points and grabbed 20+ rebounds while dishing out 5+ assists. Legendary stuff. I’m sure he appreciated the win more, though.
3. Jarred Vanderbilt’s defense. Still pumped we managed to get him as a throw in in the trade for Russell Westbrook. He makes everything work better, like the Lamar Odom’s and Rick Fox’s before him. The fact that he asked to guard Curry shows you how much belief he has in himself, how much humility and respect for the game he has (because you don’t ask for that assignment thinking “I’m shutting down Steph!” you ask for it knowing that your job is to make him work) and what an astounding work ethic he has. There will be adjustments made to neutralize The Vandolorian’s impact on Curry but that in and of itself is the sign of ultimate respect. Amazing game by JV.
4. Winning the rebounding game. Looney pulled down 23 rebounds (7 offensive which helped contribute to one of my Scary Stats regarding the Warriors) but no other player for Golden State pulled down more than 6 (Wiggins and Curry w/6 apiece). After that the drop off is even more precipitous with no Warrior grabbing more than 3. The Lakers did just well enough in the rebounding game with solid gang rebounding from the team, LeBron pulling down 11 of his own and AD matching Looney with 23 boards himself (only 4 offensive). This is the stat, along with turnovers, I’m watching the most. Lakers need to do their level-best to limit the number of extra possessions they give up.
5. Dennis Schroder’s huge impact. We’d been (OK, maybe just I…) waiting for a breakout performance from Dennis who was largely marginal in the Grizzlies series. Check that box. Pouring in a crucial 19 points Schroder filled the “Who is gonna step it up?” role in this win using efficient scoring, near-perfection from the free throw line, and z-e-r-o turnovers which helped keep the Lakers under 10 in that department (you know how I feel about those) and played the scrappy defense we’ve come to appreciate.

One last thing, don’t let the free throw discrepancy fool you. That’s a by-product of some bad defense by the Warriors (Looney smacking AD in the face, Poole choosing not to play defense on Schroder for much of the game and just slapping at the ball) and our overall style of play. We pound it inside and we don’t relent. We may not see that wide of a gulf again but I also doubt the Warriors will make so many threes.

When the bell rings to start the second round of the NBA playoffs for the Lakers and Golden State it will be an incredible series of games combined with a whole lot of colliding history. How it all shakes out is both compelling and legend defining for both franchises. Which team moves on will only add to the legacies of several players who have already notched their names in the NBA Book of Legends. Let’s shake this down.

1. If you though containing Ja Morant was a task, wait until we try and contain Steph Curry. The short answer is you can’t. Not just because of Steph’s considerable individual greatness but because most of the Warrior’s offensive schemes are designed to shake Curry loose for a critical half-second and it’s those tiny little moments he gets a quality shot off. Hit the screen hard, Draymond Green or Kevon Looney will take the hit and maybe get a foul called on you. Go under and you’ve added another half-second of time for one of the greatest shooters to lace ’em up to get an even more high quality look. Fight through too hard and Steph will time his shot so you knock into him and get the foul called his way. I don’t think it’s as simple as “put _______ on him” because of the schemes and screens the Warriors deploy. They will seek out a favorable matchup in the half court. In short you’re not containing Curry because the entire Warriors team is built to either get him a clean look or provide a high quality release valve for a Curry pass.
2. Contain Klay Thompson then? Sure. Maybe. Put Vando on Klay and deny him open looks could help swing the series our way, a little; but you may be looking at a series of high output/high efficiency games from Steph that may be too much to overcome. Again, because of the sheer volume of screens the Warriors can deploy in the half court you really can’t assign a defender to anyone player. The Warriors find shreds of space and make the absolute most of it. Klay is one of the games best and most intense competitors and will find a way or drive himself mad trying.
3. Shut the rest of the Warriors down then? If you watched the Sacramento series (especially the games the Warriors won) the balanced attack they can deploy comes from three areas: outside shooting, mid-range shots in space (which are the shots most teams willingly give up nowadays) and offensive rebounds is nigh-impossible to simply defend and win against. Again, in the half court, the Warriors will beat you…eventually. The Warriors are built and designed for the playoffs when the fast breaks slow down, when tendencies of a specific player or two can be exploited and where the fundamentals shine brighter than the athleticism is capable of. You absolutely have to control the glass which means shutting down both Kevon Looney and Draymond Green along with the board crashing Wiggins and Thompson. This will require a team-wide focus on putting a body on the closest Warrior, even if it’s not your man. We need to win the rebounding game to have a shot of any kind.
4. Sounds bleak dude, any other helpful tips? Play at a high pace. Control the tempo. The Warriors play their worst when you speed them up, this is why they struggled so much on the road in the regular season but are doing OK there now in the playoffs. It’s a slower game, more akin to Chess than a pickup game in a park in your neighborhood. You have to match wits and methodology with speed and force the Warriors to play faster than they want. This is something Sacramento lost by the end both because of injuries to Fox and mainly not having much (if any) playoff experience on the squad. the Lakers have players with experience who can play fast, that’s the advantage I believe we possess.
5. Can’t play sloppy. Turnovers will lead to break away threes and twos. Too many turnovers (and not boxing out and controlling the glass) will be the death of us so we need to play our best basketball in this series. Chemistry is on the Warriors side, rest is on ours. Win game 1 and get that out of the way, put the pressure (what little they will feel) on the Warriors and defend Crypto. Lose game 1 and all of the pressure will be on guys like Russell, Hachimura, Reaves and The Vandolorian. Every error magnified, every mistake an epic one. Win that first game and try to keep it rolling. We can win if we value every single possession like it could be our last.

I think this one goes 7 games, honestly. Either both teams will win out at home and it’ll come down to an epic game 7 (maybe the most epic semi-finals game in NBA history?) or the Warriors might beat us in 6 if our lack of chemistry and experience starts to show early in the series. This iteration of the Lakers has done a pretty solid job of playing up to the competition so I’m banking on that grit and moxie to make this a series for the record books.

Talk about making the path forward more difficult than it needed to be. While a win might be a win this one took more out of the team than many, myself included, hoped for or thought it would. The Lakers, after being down 15 in the 3rd quarter, found it within themselves to fight for the better matchup and desperately needed time off. In the end, and in overtime, the Lakers beat the Timberwolves and are the 7th seed for the 2022-23 NBA Playoffs. Let’s dig in.

1. D-Lo’s disappearing act was almost too much to overcome. Credit the coaching staff for basically benching him down the stretch as D’Angelo couldn’t hit the broadside of a barn with his jump shot, couldn’t get into the paint to score effectively and really turned in a pretty awful performance. He semi-atoned for his own personally abysmal offense by dishing 8 assists to 1 turnover but this will be something to watch going forward. Russell is an unrestricted free agent and while regular season numbers matter, playoff numbers generally count for more. D’Angelo will only damage his own value by turning in more playoff duds.
2. Dennis picked up the PG slack. He had an injury scare in the first half when it looked like he came up gimpy after a fall but he soldiered through and left it all on the court. He was the catalyst for the comeback and OT win by getting to the line, hitting 3-4 from three point land, and playing great defense. The mirror opposite of D-Lo’s game, Dennis did nothing but boost his value by turning in a gem of a playin game. The rest will only do him and our other vets who are nursing injuries of one kind or another good.
3. Rui Hachimura reprising the Kyle Kuzma role for the Lakers. In our banner winning season Kyle Kuzma was the perfect Swiss Army Knife the team needed. Providing a little bit of everything from scoring inside, shooting the three ball well enough, to defense and just flat out playing hard every minute he was on the floor. Rui played that role to perfection last night and here’s hoping he has more of it in him. We need a consistent scorer off the bench besides Dennis and the list got shorter for who qualifies when we moved Reaves to the starting 5. Beasley is too eratic to be counted on, you basically just hope he’s hot. Wenyan is not a scorer. Bamba is a defensive liability against mobile bigs/small players and doesn’t look, to me anyhow, to have playoff speed or intensity in his DNA. Having a guy like Rui who can pretty much switch onto almost everyone and give them a defensive problem of some kind is a luxury the Lakers lost when they traded Kuzma. Rui, whose defense was one of the bigger question marks when we traded for him, has shown he can rise to that role and we’ll need him to do it more as we go along.
4. How well does Reaves game translate to the playoffs? The high IQ plays across the board, the defensive intensity he brings does, too. But the way he generates offense these days (often by floating into another player and creating contact on jump shots) isn’t a playoff friendly style. Just ask James harden whose FTA’s dry up come playoff time. I’m sure there will be a game here or there where Austin gets that whistle but he’d do just as well by honestly attacking the rim and the paint. He also needs to be a lot more decisive on his drives because the ones that fail (and there were a few last night) are the one’s where he’s driving without already knowing what he’s trying to do. These are his first tastes of the bigger NBA stage and so I expect him to add adjustments and grow over time.
5. Winning without free throws. This is a hard one, and maybe it won’t matter, but I feel like the Lakers rely on free throws a lot to win ball games. This was, again, the case last night and we all know that as the playoffs wear on the whistles sound less. Now, because of the Lakers style of play, we may still end up on the plus side of the free throw line battle but it’s not a stratagem that’s entirely within our control. We need to play better all around defense and execute on offense at a higher level. We can’t have our starting guards and power forward go 5-24 and expect to earn a W every night. That won’t cut it from here on out and the Lakers are lucky KAT faded and Anthony Edwards never got it going. Some of that was good D, some of that was on poor defensive decision from KAT who should have known his team needs him on the floor but, as a team, we’ve really come to rely on free throws. it’s not a workable means of winning going forward.

Next up game 1 against Memphis on Sunday. Same applies across the board. Just because Steven Adams is out indefinitely isn’t an excuse to sleep walk through the first half. The team needs to dig down and figure out a way to play with a solid effort for the full 48 and we need more than 2/5s of our starting five to have good games. if we don’t this series will be both short and embarrassing.

Here’s hoping this is the only playin game we play. If it is that would mean we beat the Timberwolves and are officially the 7th seed in the NBA. Falling to the 8th seed, while certainly better than being wholly eliminated, would represent the most difficult path to the NBA Finals for the Laker’s as it would require playing in two playin games and ending up in the tougher seeding bracket. Beating the T’wolves means we don’t play until Sunday which would be a really great amount of rest for the team. So let’s dig in to some key aspects of this match up and how the Lakers can move on.

1. Take advantage of the missing Minnesota players. While it’s unfortunate that the Timberwolves won’t have their roster available it’s on the Lakers to press that advantage to it’s fullest. Missing key rotation players in Rudy “Mic Check” Gobert (suspended by team for fighting Kyle Anderson in the last game), Jaden “F#$% THAT WALL!” McDaniels (fractured hand after punching a wall), Naz Reid (surgery) and possibly Jaylen Nowell (knee). That’s a ton of talented size that will be MIA tomorrow night. The Lakers have made a living this season driving into the paint and attacking the rim. This generates both easy points and fouls. It’s imperative the Lakers press this exact advantage to the fullest tomorrow night.
2. Use the right defenders on KAT. Karl has been hurt a lot of the season and is probably one of the healthier superstars going into the post season. The Lakers rely on Anthony Davis on both ends of the floor, heavily. I’d maybe start the quicker and certainly more expendable if foul trouble is an issue Jarred Vanderbilt on KAT. Save AD for the second half, 4th quarter and keep his fouls low. KAT might be over to shoot over the Vandolorian but he’ll be hard=pressed to gain a speed advantage over him. I’d throw a combination of JV, Wenyan and maybe even Bamba (although Mo is awfully slow of foot and will likely pick up a grip of quick reach/hold fouls so we’ll see on that one). I’d rather KAT shoot over guys from the perimeter than get it going on the inside where he’s also likely to get to the line.
3. Contain ANT-MAN. Anthony Edwards could start to see his name appearing as a dark horse MVP soon and he really ought to make some level of All NBA this season. Dude single-handedly carried Minnesota to the brink of the playoffs with KAT missing a huge chunk of the season, the team trading D-Lo, and the kind of mish-mash roster you don’t generally see do well in the modern NBA. No single player will stop this man so the question is containment and how to get it done. Like KAT you prefer him shooting from the outside over a defender or two and you don’t want him to live at the free throw line. Just do your best to keep him out of the paint and throw two guys at him when possible, give him different looks every few times down, maybe zone him up when it’s just Anthony and Karl sits.
4. Don’t sleep on Mike Conley. I feel like this will be LeBron’s defensive assignment although with 40% of the starting line up out for the game he might end up on Kyle Anderson or Taurean Prince. I’d try and keep LeBron off the high energy/hustle guys (like prince) so if it’s not Mike I expect it to be Kyle. Both players can hurt you but Mike Conley is sneaking elite. He can light you up for 40. he can rack up 20 assists. he can put a defensive gem in his crown in any game. He’s a top tier point guard who’s healthy right now (frankly that’s my one gripe is he’s often out for long stretches of a season). LeBron is going to be our weakest link defensively. I’ve watched him not close out, not rotate, not switch or fight through a screen all season long and I don’t think he possesses a magical switch to just turn that all on. Not anymore. So you want him on the least mobile or slowest player. Or at least the guy who is most likely to slink into the corner for an open three. LeBron needs to stymie those kind of plays.
5. The Lakers bench has little reason not to dominate. With a lot of their vaunted depth sapped due to stupidity, injuries or stupid injuries the Lakers’ bench has a golden opportunity to define and dominate this game. If they can put together a solid, focused and effective effort we might win this game going away. If they’re not on point, wilt under the bright lights, or simply get out-played it could make for a tough game indeed. Some guys have been sitting a lot and you may find your number called: be like Lonnie and stay ready. You will not get calls going forward barring something obvious. Play through, play hard, and get it done.

The Lakers need to get this done and start to atone for the many bone-headed losses, subpar efforts and inexplicable choices made throughout the season. Get this win tomorrow, get LeBron and AD into treatment and let the team rest a bit with some film and walk throughs. We have the talent and the experience to go on a deep run and the bracket broke very favorably for us. Now we need to take advantage of those fortunate occurences.

Been swamped at work and at home so haven’t had time to dig into every game. Lots to like, some issues persist but one thing is clear: we won’t miss the playin. Had we won out and not lost to the Clippers we would have been guaranteed to slot no lower than the 6th seed. As it stands we’re probably going to have to play at least one extra game and potentially face the Nuggets or Grizzlies in our first round matchup, should we get that far.

1. As it has been for months the daily mantra is “kill ’em all”. Not literally, of course, this is a figurative mantra. The Lakers need to keep applying pressure through winning. We went away from our recent tried and true formula of making AD the focal point with Russell and LeBron on the court against the Clippers as Davis shot the ball only 14 times compared to James’ 20 and Russell’s 13 and Reaves’ 11. Hard to kill ’em all with jump shots when we need to pound teams into submission in the paint. This isn’t as much on the players as it is the coaches. Anthony Davis simply must be the main focal point on offense and our chances of winning will go up with the number of field goals he takes. 20 is the bare minimum.
2. Nagging injuries are the bane of our team. Now D’Angelo is nursing a bad wheel? Geeeeez man. Between AD’s floating bone, LeBron’s lower body and now Russell’s hip, back and foot the Lakers have an Operation game on their hands keeping guys available. Hopefully less travel and time between games will help alleviate that although the Lakers are assured zero home court advantage in any series they participate in.
3. The starting line up is as solid as it’s been all season long. Unfortunately that means the bench is now lacking depth, especially on the guard front. All our best players start and play big minutes so one of the challenges facing Coach Ham and his staff is finding reliable production off the bench. Schroder has looked gassed this week in all our games. Wenyan busts his ass every night but is generally facing a more talented opponent and that gulf will only widen once we hit the playin/offs. Our “laser” isn’t firing very well. Our more dynamic athletes don’t get consistent minutes. Of all our bench guys I think I trust Rui the most because his offense is pretty consistent and his defense seems to have already taken a small step in the right direction. Not too sure how much I’d throw at Mo Bamba but, like LW4, he is an option.
4. Coach Ham still struggling with adjustments. This is one of those things that he’ll be working on for as long as he coaches but we need to see more immediate growth sooner than later or I worry about how we’ll fare in 7 game series. We’re just about one season in under coach Ham and the best I can come up with in terms of identity and philosophy is use our defense to get out on the break and play inside out as much as humanly possible with the focus on the inside. Not to be dismissive but that really is a basketball 101 approach to the offensive side of basketball. Like Vogel before him I think Ham is more comfotrable coaching and preaching defensive principles, which is good, but our offense lacks a dynamic look at times, which is bad. Especially when it comes to freeing up guys like Beasley, Bamba, and even LeBron and D-Lo for three point shots. There doesn’t seem to be a play we run that all but guarantees a shot or a foul. While I doubt that changes this season it’s certainly something I hope he addresses over the summer.
5. What destiny we control. Not gonna lie, the loss to the Clippers coupled with a lot of teams in front of us resting key players makes us getting out of the playin rounds a real challenge. it’s unfortunate that we played LeBron, AD, and D’Angelo at less than 100% and still lost because now hindsight is telling me we should have rested all 3 and sucked up the loss in a sacrifice to better health. Still, there’s a small chance we crack through so keep the love light burring, Lakerholics.