Aloha,

Before the game if you had told me that the Warriors would have 20 offensive rebounds, take 28 more shot and we would miss 11 free throws to boot, I would have said it sounds like a blow out. And it was. We simply blew out the Warriors.

As it has been in these playoffs it was all about defense. And as usual it starts and ends with AD. There just isn’t another center in the league that can show on the perimeter and still drop back to protect the rim. This allows our perimeter defenders to get into Steph, Klay everyone really. We just made it uncomfortable for their shooters and they never found a rhythm. And if they ventured into the paint there was AD. Yes he blocks shots, yes he alters shots. But if there was a stat for a player that is so intimidating that the opponent doesn’t even attempt the shot, AD would be an all time leader.

I don’t know if anyone was disappointed that AD only scored 17, but I wasn’t because he was responsible for a lot more than that. The Warriors entire game plan was to prevent AD from scoring by consistently crowding him. But guess what that does? It allows LeBron to play one on one and boy did he.

Everyone had been wondering if we ever would see vintage playoff LeBron again. He had been good but not great. But this game was huge. We probably lose the series if it had gone back to SF. So LeBron put his head down and drove to the basket. And drove and drove and drove. He proved that you still can’t play him one on one. It also has been a while since we have seen him run like this. We have not needed this version of LeBron much in the playoffs. Good LeBron had been enough. We still might have won with good LeBron. But beast mode LeBron turned the game into a rout.

As for our role players they all stepped up again. The talk is always about finding the Lakers a third star. But we may have one in Austin. I can’t recall seeing a player develop this quickly over the course of a season. But Austin with his two way play and his seamless fit with LeBron and AD might be on the way to 3rd star status. And if he doesn’t quite get there. The combination of him and DLO in the back court is much better than any one player we could land.

I also like Dennis and defense until he got stupid. I know know it must be tempting to rub it in with a big mouth like Dray but you just have to be smarter than that.

We also got good minutes from Rui and Vando. I expect both to have bigger roles against the Nuggets because of their size.

Now comes the big test. The Grizzlies had some injuries and had not been good down the stretch. Even though they were the 2nd seed they had not looked like it for a while. The Warriors season was similar to ours with a lot of injuries and missing players. While they were the defending champions they had not looked the part all year. The Nuggets have been good all year.

They will present a lot of challenges but we present challenges for them as well. If we can get past the Nuggets. With the Bucks gone, no one in the East scares me.

Wow. Who would have thought…

Aloha,

I believe home court is more important in basketball than any other sport. In this series you can feel the home crowd feeding energy to the players. We have managed to win twice in the playoffs on the road. Both 1st games when we were pumped coming out to start the series. We have not matched the home court energy in our 4 losses. Fortunately no one has matched our energy at home with the exception of game 4 against the Warriors. We need to continue to feed off that energy, especially in the first quarter. We can’t allow the Warriors to find a groove early.

Aloha,

Sometimes the fans are right and the coach is wrong. With every missed 3 from Beasley the voices of the fans calling for Lonnie grew louder. Yet it wasn’t until game 3 that the coaching staff listened. And it’s a good thing they did because Lonnie may have saved the series in game 4.

We have seen this Lonnie before on multiple occasions. Then he had those back to back injuries and disappeared from the rotation. I’m still mystified by that.

While the scoring is what everyone is talking about, I thought his defense was exceptional as well. He was in Klay’s shirt the entire 4th quarter and Klay only managed one make. I am hoping we can figure out a way to keep the kid. He’s only 24. But with each performance like this one, it becomes less likely we will be able to afford him.

Everyone likes to talk about Lebron’s age. But you rarely hear anything about Steph’s age. He is 35 and he was clearly gassed down the stretch.

Speaking of LeBron, the Lakers went to point guard LeBron in the 4th. And it turned the tide. While the Warriors had success with their tiny line up, that left LeBron on tiny guards and while he might be old, he’s still the strongest man on the court and the Warriors had no answer.

Lebrons defense has also been impressive. He has not defended like this for 2 years.

Welcome back Austin. It was great seeing him score again. He hasn’t been effective the last few games and even in this game he got off to a slow start. But he found his groove again and I’m hoping that carries over to the next game.

AD only had 4 points in the 2nd half. But unlike some of his other games, that wasn’t his fault. For some reason the Lakers ran nothing for him. They were not even looking for him. If the Warriors go tiny again, the Lakers must feed AD more. Fortunately unlike game 2, it didn’t affect his rebounding and defense. They pulled him out in pick and roll and he was unable to defend the paint as much as usual but the flip side was the Warriors were not getting many clean looks from 3 either. AD’s defensive stand against Curry late in the game was epic. There is no other center in the league that can guard Curry straight up.

I love the depth of this team supporting LeBron and AD. One game it maybe DLO having a big game, the next it might be Austin, or Dennis or Rui or last night, Lonnie. That has happened this entire playoff run. And we are still learning how to play together. We have a collective 3rd scorer which is great because the opponent never knows where that scoring is going to come from.

This game was more like I had expected. The biggest surprise for me in this series was the 2 blow outs. We maybe up 3 – 1 but it’s going to be a challenge to win this series. Even though they lost Kerr found a way to minimize AD’s rim protection through pick and roll. I’m sure that he will roll with it in game 5. And I can say with confidence that the Warriors will not shoot 29% at home from 3. I will be interested in seeing what adjustments Coach Ham makes. He has responded each time all through the playoffs. Hopefully he will have the answer in game 5. As hard as it was to win yesterday, game 5 will be even harder on the Warriors home court.

Aloha,

The Dubs blew us out in game 2 so it was only fair that we returned the favor. I was surprised when the Warriors blew us out and frankly I was surprised that we did the same. But it was clear why it happened.

It always begins and ends with AD. We rarely lose when he dominates the game. AD had commented that the last game, he just missed shots he normally makes. And that is true. As a matter of fact he only made 2 more baskets than the game before. But he aggressively attacked the rim and went 11 for 12 from the line. He was 1 for 1 the game before. The Warriors are small and they have no answer for AD when he attacks.

And we saw it on the defensive end as well. The Warriors got off to a good start when AD was staying in his deep drops. Once he began to come up and show on the guards, the game turned around. The one thing that AD can do that most bigs can’t is show on a guard and still drop back and protect the rim. His 4 blocks hardly tell the story. He altered so many more than that and discouraged others from even attempting the shot. If AD can bring this every game the series is over.

LeBron is LeBron again for the 2nd game in a row. There just seems to be more spring in his step and he was super efficient in choosing his spots. I also loved that he only took 4 threes, canning 2. He scored 21 but he didn’t need to score more. And his 8 assists were as important than the points. We have seen LeBron bring it on offense all year but what has impressed me more has been his defense. He has been intense on that side of the ball, rarely taking a play off. He had been our weak link on defense this year. If he defends like this, we are in good shape.

I had commented earlier if we didn’t get good guard play, it didn’t matter how many points AD scored. Well we got good guard play. You could say that it was our guards that opened things up for AD and Lebron. DLO torched them in the first half. I think this opened everything up. And it wasn’t just DLO. Dennis was 3 for 6 from 3 and Lonnie was 2 for 4. We won the 3 point battle 15 to 13 but more importantly on 13 less attempts. 47% from 3 will get it done. And that opened everything up inside. We can’t constantly out shoot the Warriors from 3. But if we can continue to hit a decent percentage the Warriors can’t beat us.

Let’s give coach Ham his flowers. Three big adjustments turned the tide. I already mentioned AD coming out from his deep drops but just as important was putting Vando on Draymond and having AD guard the other Green. The Warriors run everything through Dray and we disrupted their offensive flow. What made this work was our guards defended their butts off. I’m not surprised when Dennis and Austin do it but DLO looked like a defensive stopper last night.

The last move That Coach Ham made was something everyone here had been asking for. He inserted Lonnie into the rotation. I believe I could even hear Buba shouting with joy all the way here in Hawaii. That really changed the offensive dynamic. Now the Dubs had another scorer to worry about on the perimeter. Lonnie was 2 for 4 from 3 but he is much more than that. He is a 3 level scorer with a mid range and he can get to the rim. His reverse layup was a thing of beauty. We know he can score but he also played large on the defensive side of the ball. Not only was he able to hang with the Dubs guards but he had 2 steals and a block as well. I’m hoping that this is the rotation for the rest of the series.

We all know we will have to win on the defensive end. We can’t consistently out gun the Warriors. We also need very good games from LeBron and AD. But we have a real luxury knowing that on any given night we can get big offensive games from DLO, Austin, Dennis, Rui and Lonnie. We don’t need them to all go off but knowing any one of them can, puts more pressure on a Warriors team that isn’t a great defensive team.

Monday is another big game. Like with Memphis, I don’t want to be forced to win another game up north. The Warriors don’t lose many home games. We just need to take care of our home court.

Aloha,

Tom posted an article about the Lakers not needing Kyrie and I completely agree. It got me thinking. If we denounced all of players not under full contracts we would only have around 30 mil. Not enough for Kyrie or building a better team. And the new CBA makes trading for a super star, super hard.

While one can argue that as constructed this roster isn’t championship level, with all the new restrictions, it’s probably the best we can do. Two things that will work in our favor is there is not a lot of money out there this year. Only rebuilding squads have a lot of cap space. The other is the cap will jump 10% the following year due to the new TV deal. Here is where we stand:

Under full contracts
LBJ
AD
Max
That is a combined salary of $95,688,850. See the problem? The projected cap for next year is 132 mil. The projected tax apron is $164 mil. But there is a new wrinkle if you go over the apron by $17.5 mil you lose your MLE. This makes it even harder to spend.

Free agents with bird rights:

DLO
Austin
Rui
Gabriel (early bird rights)
I believe we will retain all 4. With so little cap space out there this is a bad year for DLO to become a free agent. He is too old for the rebuilders. I think 25 to 30 mil will probably get it done. Because of the Arinas rule no one can offer Austin more then 12 mil the first two years. He can be offered a big raise the last two. Austin is not going anywhere. Rui’s current market appears to be $15 to $18 mil. He will also be back. Gabriel won’t be offered a huge amount. He is the perfect energy bench guy for us.

Players with Team options or non guaranteed deals.

Vando
Beasley
Bamba
Shaq Harrison

At a little under 5 mil, Vando is a no brainer. I watched Harrison in the G league. He is a good defender and at a veteran min would be decent end of the bench guy. I have always like Beasley’s game but since coming here he hasn’t given us much. Some guys are just not cut out for the bright lights I guess. Bamba at 10 mil is over paid for what he brings. Both could be cut. They would have to be guaranteed before they can be traded. I’m sure Rob is testing the trade waters now. You can’t trade until your season is over but you can talk.

Guys with no bird right.

Dennis
Lonnie
Troy

All 3 out played their contract. We probably will lose them since we have to fit them into non existent cap space. We could perhaps use the MLE of 7 mil to keep Dennis. He is a very good back up PG and we probably could not do better. We would probably have to cut either Bamba or Beasley in order to have the MLE available.

We have the 17th pick and a mid 2nd round pick available. That’s about 4.5 mil in first year salaries.

There will be 3 two way contracts available this year. That’s great news for the Lakers considering our success at finding hidden gems. Pippin Jr was one of the best G league players last year. I would give him one of the slots, if not an end of the bench slot.

The core I’m sure will be back is
LeBron
AD
Austin
DLO
Rui
Vando
Max
Gabriel

That is a good start but it will be a challenge building a quality 2nd unit. And with LeBron and AD’s injury history a solid bench is a must. We will need:
A quality back up PG( Dennis?)
A solid defensive center
At least one scoring wing

Can we find them with trades? Can we draft a plug and play player at 17 in the draft. Is there a ring chasing vet with a little left in the tank? Can we rehabilitate a young player like we did with Troy and Lonnie?

These are the questions that will have to be answered. The good news is that we haven’t had a quality returning core for some time. Austin, Rui, Max , Vando and Gabriel will all improve. I finally have a good feeling about this team moving forward. It’s been a few years since that was the case.

Aloha,

The Lakers have now exceeded my expectations for this year. When I saw the poorly constructed roster at the beginning of the year I thought that if we could stay healthy and the young guys ramped up their play then maybe we could sneak into the first round. Over all the young guys gave us some good moments but we got stung by the injury bug again. Then came the trades. You have to hand it to Rob. He didn’t panic and waited it out until the right trades materialized.

The adjustments that Coach Ham made are some of the best between game adjustments I’ve seen in a very long time. Of course it was all made possible by the best defensive center in the game. ( sorry triple J )
Only AD has the mobility to jump out and double the pick and roll and still get back to protect the rim. Shrinking the rotation to 8 also was huge. Bringing Gabriel in instead of Troy or Beasley was huge. It gave us 3 players with size to counter JJJ. Even though Gabriel only played 10 minutes it was impactful with a couple of baskets and blocks. I also thought putting Rui on Bane was genius. Rui had a tremendous defensive game. His size really bothered Bane and Rui demonstrated the quickness needed to stay with Bane.

We will only go as far as our defense will take us, but we have the blue print now. Even LeBron, who I have been critical of for only defending in spurts was locked in defensively all night. I think a lot of that is made possible by having 2 playmakers in Austin and Dlo running the show. LeBron is no longer tasked with always having to be the playmaker. I would be remiss if I didn’t mention Vando’s defense on Ja. What a luxury to have a long 6’ 9” player capable of hanging with one of the quickest guards in the NBA.

I believe we can match up defensively with any team moving forward. Our shooting comes and goes but with our transition game and paint points , our defense will keep us in most of the games moving forward. I can see us losing to any of the remaining teams, but for the first time I can see us beating any of them as well.

Aloha,

That first quarter was something to behold. I can’t recall a playoff game where a team dominated like that. But given the choice of dominating the 1st quarter or the 4th I would take the 4th every time. Because there are no safe early leads in the NBA.

Now the Griz are very good team and I knew that they would make some runs. While I never felt like the game was in danger, I felt we blew an opportunity to really cast some doubt in them. Instead they got close enough by the end to write the game off as just a bad first quarter.

For me the biggest problem was that 4th quarter. We went into the basketball equivalent of football’s prevent defense, way too soon. The Lakers abandoned what got them the big lead before the 4th quarter was even half way played. And Ja was able to make it uncomfortable. Hopefully we don’t do that again.

AD dominated like everyone wanted him too. While his defense has been stellar throughout, it’s his offense that has been choppy. What changed? Well he became decisive with ball and made his moves before the double could arrive. That is the key to AD’s game. He is going to get doubled if he doesn’t act immediately. His only flaw was trying to force baseline a few times when it it wasn’t there. We can go a long way with this AD.

The old geezer had another solid game. He made big mouth Brooks look foolish. And it clearly got into his head. I really didn’t want him getting tossed. Our defense is better when plays. Everyone knows that Brooks is a poor shooter except for apparently him. I don’t even like it when he gets in foul trouble. His defense has not been that disruptive and it’s nice when he’s out there laying bricks.

Rui has been amazing. The kid has the skill and the body to be a star in this league. You can trace his emergence to when coach Ham sat him for a game. It was like last year when Frank sat Malik to send a message. Ham didn’t think Rui was being aggressive enough. Well it worked. It also looks like he adjusted his 3 point shot. It appears to have more arch now. It was really flat before. While I think Rui will be a starter next year I can understand him coming off the bench now. We are not getting much scoring from the 2nd unit. He’s about the only one. But he only got 22 minutes. He should get more than that.

Austin is our Manu Ginóbili. He just makes winning plays. Timely shots. Timely defense. He is always solid.

Does anyone other than myself want to see Lonnie get some run in place of Beasley? Beasley isn’t giving us anything. Lonnie is a good scorer and that 2nd unit needs scoring. At least give the kid a chance to see what he can do.

While I doubt we will see another quarter like the first one, if AD plays with the way he did yesterday, I think we will go back to Memphis up 3-1.

Aloha,

It appears that there is no time table for Kawhi to return and he is out again today. The media fixates so much on AD and Lebrons injuries, yet Kawhi and PG has been hurt as much, if not more. It is clear that the basketball gods do not want the Clippers in LA. Every time they field a contender, they are struck down by injuries.

A healthy Clipper team was actually the team I feared the most in the West but it looks as if the Suns will move on if they can stay healthy. After all they have KD and CP3, neither have been a model of health.

While the Suns starting unit is the best in the NBA, they have no depth. KD and Booker are averaging 43 minutes a game, while CP3 is playing 39. One wonders how far they can advance with those 3 playing heavy minutes. They desperately need a few blow out wins, just to avoid playing their stars into the ground.