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Read MoreThe crew and familiar faces from lakerholics.com have gotten together to share their picks for the 2022 NBA All-Star game. Our choices can be found below and will be updated. What are your choices lakerholics.com followers? Share thoughts below with your choices and let us know what you think of ours!
LakerTom East Starters- Trey Young, Zack LaVine, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Joel Embid, Kevin Durant
LakerTom East Reserves- DeMar DeRozan, James Harden, LaMelo Ball, Garland, Van Vleet, Bam Adebayo, Jared Allen
LakerTom West Starters- Steph Curry, Devin Booker, Ja Morant, LeBron James, and Nikola Jokic
LakerTom West Reserves- Luka Doncic, Chris Paul, Anthony Edwards, Paul George, Karl Anthony Towns, Rudy Gobert, Draymond Green
Gerald West Starters-Curry, Morant, LeBron, Jokic, Booker
Gerald West Reserves-Doncic, Paul, Green, Donovan Mitchell, Gobert, Towns, Anthony Wiggins
Gerald East Starters-Durant, Embiid, Antetokounmpo, DeRozan, Harden
Gerald East Reserves-LaVine, Allen, Young, Darius Garland, Jrue Holiday, Jimmy Butler, Fred Van Vleet
Jamie Sweet East Starters- Embiid, Durant, Antetokounmpo, DeRozan, Young
Jamie Sweet East Reserves- Butler, Allen, Garland, LaVine, Harden, LaMelo Ball, Jaylen Brown
Jamie Sweet West Starters- James, Curry, Morant, Jokic, Doncic
Jamie Sweet West Reserves- Anthony Davis, Wiggins, Booker, Paul, Green, Towns, Mitchell
Sean Grice East Starters- Embiid, Durant, Antetokounmpo, DeRozan, Young
Sean Grice East Reserves- Harden, LaVine, Nikola Vucevic, LaMelo Ball, Lonzo Ball, Van Vleet, Garland
Sean Grice West Starters- Doncic, Jokic, LeBron, Curry, Morant
Sean Grice West Reserves- Green, Desmond Bane, Booker, DeAndre Ayton, Mitchell, Gobert
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Not the cheeriest of podcasts but, generally, a realistic take on the loss. No D, no help for LBJ = no chance
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Gerald and I fighting over whether the Lakers played great defense or not. My position is it was great defense by the Lakers that won this game, specifically forcing turnovers that led to 28 Lakers points and a 15-point advanteage off of turnovers.
Gerald continued to claim we played poor defense. I countered with the point that we played small but only lost the battle of the boards by 2 rebounds and points in the paint war by 2 points. Lakers learning how to win playing small.
Give us a listen and chime in on whether you agreed with me that LeBron and the Lakers played great defense last night or with Gerald that our defense sucked and we only won because of our offense.
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Ehhhhhh…I don’t know about great defense. 118 points is not great defense. Young missed shots he normally makes, we didn’t reprise our role of team Oxygen (although Kevin Huerter was knocking at that door all game) and we found our good defense at the time we needed it most. I would say that you both made valid points, LeBron played pretty solid defense but it was really Russ’s rebounding that kept the battle of the boards as close as it was, THT and Reaves both got keys steals late, and we had an incredible shooting night to offset the fact that we also allowed the Hawks to score a ton of points. We only managed 6 more FGAs so we didn’t do lock them down or stop them from getting where they wanted they missed a lot of shots they often make and had TO’s at bad times (for them).
A great defense keeps teams closer to 100 and does more than accumulate steals and blocks. They deny the team the kind of shots they want, we didn’t do anything like that. We’re functioning better at defense on a basic level but we’re not forcing enough midrange jumpers. They still got 12 offensive rebounds (too many), 29 assists (too efficient), and 56 points in the paint (still too small to deter shots at the rim). Atlanta may have made it to the ECF last season but they look nothing like that team to date. The home stand has consisted of highly beatable teams who have a players out, we should be winning these games.
The offense has looked the best it’s ever looked this season of late, that’s been the biggest change. The defense is approaching league average but it should get better with AD and Nunn.
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Oh, Tom will you ever learn….First, to clarify I said defensive “lapses” as they gave up multiple double-digit leads. This might happen one or two times a month to the top teams in the league but to happen as frequently as it did last night clearly shows that despite some very good defensive possessions, the Lakers with their small-ball lineups have quite a bit more to work on when it comes to a consistent four quarters of defense. Second, Tom never question my objectiveness as I have clearly gone out of my way to be as objective as possible as I try to see the game through my experience in covering the NBA as opposed to seeing it from just a fan’s point of view. Let’s never go there Tom with objectiveness because everyone knows you see all things through those purple and gold-colored glasses you have on when you go hiking lol. Third, your All-Star lineups were really good and I must say for someone who has not been able to watch a good portion of the NBA outside of the Lakers I am very impressed with your picks. I would just choose Jimmy Butler over Bam simply because of the health status for Bam but looking forward to dropping my own picks on lakerholics.com real soon.
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Well, one thing I won’t argue with you is which of us is more objective. I’ve never tried to claim that I’m objective when it comes to the Laker or that I don’t look at things in life and basketball with a Glass Half Full approach.
I like where this team is headed and still contend that it was our defense was just as important as our offense last night. We had 14 steals and scored 28 points off of 15 Hawk turnovers. A lot of why we were successful on offense was due to our defense.
You also have to accept that score is not really the best indicator of the quality of defense a team plays. We had 24 fast break points to just 10 for Atlanta. We took 101 shots and made 49.5% but we held them to just 45.3% from the field.
If we score 134, it’s almost impossible to hold the other team under 120 but then we did.Finally, did you watch or listen to the game? I know sometimes you have to pick up your wife and catch the game on Sirius. Just asking because the eye test told me that LeBron and the Lakers played excellent defense. There were also two scrub threes in the last minute that inflated the Hawks score and made the game seem closer than it was. A game where Lakers played excellent offense and defense.
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Saw the whole game on my beautiful QLED TV. Unlike you who seemingly only caught the Lakers runs…OOOOOOHHHHHHH COMEBACK OHHHHHHHHHHH LOL
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LOL. So you saw that great defense by LeBron James playing center stripping the ball from various Hawks players and swatting away layups?
Or was that during the breaks to fill your half empty glass?
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happy New Year. Great final podcast for 2021. Thanks to Gerald for having myself, Jamie Sweet, and Lee Robinson as regular guests on Lakers Fast Break Podcasts. If you haven’t taken the time to try us out, please do. I think you’ll enjoy the funny, intelligent banter as we talk about everything Lakers.
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So chilly!
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Always good to talk after a win than a loss. We saw something important in the LeBron at the five lineup tonight, which is something that we’re going to have to lean on going forward, which is the LeBron and Russ pairing.
Russ at point and LeBron at the five was the key to winning this game. The backdoor cuts by LeBron and great on-time passes from Russ were a thing of beauty. Lakers need to play a lot more LeBron at the five, even after AD returns from injury.
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This is to what I was referring to in terms of a pre-taped call in show.
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As I said on the podcast, I was running late all day because of Christmas and was replaying the game trying to get ready for the post game podcast with Gerald. When the 4th quarter started with the Lakers down 20, I finally gave up and fast forwarded the game only to discover the Lakers had come back and tied the game with a couple of minutes left. I lost the best stretch of the Lakers’ Christmas game and will rewatch today.
The Lakers desperately needed that comeback in the fourth quarter to not have a disastrous Christmas day game. What we need now is to get Reaves, Ariza, and Bazemore back and hopefully Nunn soon after that. Be great to go into January with the complete roster except for Anthony Davis. Still cannot see what we have until eveybody is healthy. Still convinced that we need to package Westbrook, THT, and Nunn to rebuild roster.
The other thing I announced on the podcast was that I am not 100% in the trade Westbrook camp. I’ve just reached the point where I think the chaos he creates makes it diffucult for this team to play with the consistency and ball security we need to win.
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It’s hard to do podcasts in the middle of a losing streak. One half of you wants to rave and rant about how terrible the Lakers role players are, abandoning LeBron and Russ while the more objective half realizes we may have another 20 games like this before our team is whole or improved via a midseason trade.
Russ said it best. You just have to soldier on and believe in ourselves. And trust Rob Pelinka to make a blockbuster trade before the deadline. Lakers have to make it through Jan 15.
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Lakers Need to Tread Water for 10 More Games!
Lakers have 10 games before January 15, when THT will become eligible to be traded. Here's hoping we get back some of the players out due to H&S protocols so we can at least hover near .500 during that stretch.
Time to act, Rob! pic.twitter.com/VxXE3OGxMH
— LakerTom (@LakerTom) December 24, 2021
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Sorry I’ve been MIA dudes, we had to scratch some travel plans and it’s been a chaotic week here at Casa Dulce’.
-LT is right in that it is a crazy COVID season.
-Gerald’s holiday hat is 0-3.
-TA looked good in his first game.
-DAJ is the worst and there were so many better options at the time.
-Jae and CP3 should both have called for Flagrant 1’s on the undercuts.
-Hard for me to see us trading Russ.
-We cannot trade our way out of the cap constraints the 3 supes put us in. We have too many old dues on vet min deals that nobody wants as a sweetner or whatever.
-Xmas Day will be These buncha dudes vs Some of these other guys.Thanks for the shout out, hoping to be on Thursday with my LakerHoliday Hat!
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Really fun discussion, was nice to see Mr. Grice in the flesh. As always he has some astute observations. I would also like to thank both Gerald and Sean for being so patient with my scarf-searching child. Tom, Gerald, Sean and myself all have dropped picks which can be heard in the podcast so drop yours in the chat below! 5 starters, 7 reserves for both conferences. Maybe someday Tom, Michael and I can figure out some kinda Lakerholics swag to give away if you get the teams spot on, lol.