Posted: Sun Feb 27, 2022 9:40 pm Post subject: PELICANS -at- LAKERS - 2-27-22 - Thoughts and :-(( Ratings
Smoked By The Pelicans... Yikes.
An impressive 9 turnovers for the Lakers in the first quarter of this game. And just a few seconds into the second quarter, a turnover. That’s about 40-turnover pace in their first 12 minutes of ball. They slowed the pace down a little and finished with 16 turnovers at the half (a season-high) as they trailed 51-40.
If you love basketball, this was the remedy for that.
The offensive execution has regressed badly. Plays they were running earlier in the season have been abandoned. The coaching on that end of the floor is awful.
The vibe on this team is bad right now. These are the kinds of games that get a coach fired.
The boo’s came out when LeBron threw a turnover down 19 -- the Lakers 18th turnover in the game midway through the third quarter. The Lakers gave up 44 points in the third quarter to trail by 30. This team is hard to watch.
The Lakers eventually fell 123-95.
Atrocious team right now. Poorly coached, poorly played, poorly put together,
LeBron -- -- Sluggish out of the gates in this game. He looks mentally fatigued. The extra gear is there when he wants it. We saw that late in this game when we forced a timeout down 22 with 5 minutes to go as he scored his 32nd point. He had a flurry there. He needs floor spacing to make his job easier. He doesn’t have that with the starters. When he picked things up offensively, he had that room as our bigs sat. Only way to get it with Dwight, is to go with Bron/Melo/Johnson at the C spot. I;m guessing they don’t want to do that for long as it will fatigue him. Thus, I think you saw them just throw DJ into the mix in the second half for a stretch when we were in trouble. The boo’s came out when he threw a baseline pass out of bounds from one corner to the other. More boo’s on his 7th turnover at the end of the third quarter down 30. The product is awful right now. If he’s taking heat, someone’s head is going to roll. The Stats: He scored 32 points on 13-23 shooting (1-4 from three, 5-5 from the line) to go with 6 boards, 3 assists, 2 steals, 2 blocks, 7 turnovers and 2 fouls in 36 minutes. He was a -22.
Westbrook -- -- The Pelicans were begging him to shoot jumpers. Frankly, just begging him to do anything at this point. The Westbrook factory was pumping out turnovers and bricks at quite a rapid pace in this one. The Vogel/Westbrook combination is just not a good one. You’ve got a player who requires a lot of intention/design in your offense in order to play to his strengths and mitigate his weaknesses. You need to play call and organize the offense because Russ isn’t a floor general. Vogel lets them improvise way too much. Thus, you get Russ in floor-spreader roles or trying to take long jumpers because the paint is packed. After the All Star Break should be a time for fine tuning and throttling up. The Lakers are just going backwards for looong stretches of games. You really need to plan, orchestrate and fine tune those LeBron/Russ minutes at the start of games to get through those minutes successfully. The Stats: He scored 16 points on 5-15 shooting (0-2 from three, 6-7 from the line) to go with 6 boards, 1 assist, 1 steal, 7 turnovers and 3 foul sin 28 minutes. He was a -26.
Reaves -- -- His three shooting was hurting as they could double and leave him open (in addition to Russ or Ariza in that starting lineup). That won’t work, especially with traditional C’s also out there. I’m trying to imagine a guard other than Westbrook on the floor with Reaves and how that would look if you let Reaves ball handle and create a little more. He gets into the paint and moves the ball, but teams can easily just sag off Russ and recover as we then get into iso ball again, instead of catch-and-shoot or attacking close outs. We lose a lot of dynamic there to Reaves game. Games like these you should be putting the ball in Reaves and THT’s hands and let them get some reps. Instead, they sat him quite a bit. They brought him back with a few minutes left to twist his ankle it looked like. Probably fine, but they sat him right after that. The Stats: He scored 2 points on 1-5 shooting (0-4 from three) to go with 2 fouls in 21 minutes. He was a -20.
Howard -- -- He was not the springy, active player we saw in the last game. He cleaned up a lot of missed shots in the last one. Not tonight and that helped keep the ugly ball ugly. The Stats: He scored 6 points on 3-5 shooting to go with 11 boards (2 offensive), 1 assist, 1 block, 3 turnovers and 2 fouls in 22 minutes. He was a -10.
Ariza -- -- I’m having a hard time seeing the Ariza/Dwight/Russ combo working in any kind of reasonable way. Just no room for our roll-the-ball-out-there offensive scheme to create. Putting him in the starting lineup just seems like a pretty obvious mistake. The Stats: He scored 3 points on 1-3 shooting (0-2 from three, 1-1 from the line) to go with 1 steal and 1 foul in 11 minutes. He was a -9.
Monk -- -- Great defensive play in transition to go up high to swipe a lob pass early in the game. One of the few Laker highlights of the first half. His defense was poor, otherwise. Monk had 2 turnovers and no points in the first half and was mostly lost. Probably need to get him back in the starting unit or Melo. We need to kickstart some shooting if we are going to go big with Dwight. The Stats: He didn’t score on 0-5 shooting (0-2 from three) to go with 1 board, 1 assist, 2 steals, 1 block, 3 turnovers and 1 foul in 24 minutes. He was a -4.
Anthony -- -- If we are starting Dwight, we probably need to start Melo, too. We need floor spacing and Melo’s quick trigger is something teams respect. That will give Russ/LeBron a little more room to attack. Another guy tonight who also didn’t need to be out there for as long as he was considering he’s coming off that injury. Not sure what we were doing. The Stats: He scored 13 points on 4-9 shooting (1-5 from three, 4-4 from the line) to go with 5 boards, 1 assist, 1 block and 4 fouls in 30 minutes. He was a -11.
Johnson -- -- With all the doubles in the post, I would have liked to have him out there. He sets those pin-ins and flare screens that actually give the Lakers an advantage off those double teams and zones. It’s noticeable that we don’t have those happening when Stanley isn’t on the floor. That’s just awful coaching. Just 12 minutes for him tonight. He seemed to be a key when we went for small ball action previously. If you are going to give up 123 points, you need to be at least an offensive force to compete. The small ball at least opens the floor for the stars. The Stats: He scored 4 points on 1-2 shooting (0-1 from three, 2-2 from the line) to go with 1 board, 2 assists, 1 block and no fouls in 12 minutes. He was a -5.
Horton-Tucker -- -- Late in the game we put the ball in his hands some with the small ball. He and Russ need the floor spacing in order to be effective offensively. At least THT plays the defensive end with energy. So if the offense isn’t going, you get that effort which helps. He led the team with the 5 assists, with just 1 turnover in the process. Again, LeBron and Russ not setting up teammates in the past couple. The Stats: he scored 5 points on 2-7 shooting (1-5 from three) to go with 3 boards, 5 assists, 1 steal, 1 turnover and 3 fouls in 25 minutes. He was a -9.
Ellington -- bwave: -- He came in during th eLakers offensive issues of the third quarter. In the fourth, he hit a corner three on one of our best passing sequences of the game. Not enough of that in this game. Not even close. He’d hit another from the same spot on the next possession. The Stats: He scored 9 points on 3-8 shooting from three to go with 2 boards, 1 steal and no fouls in 18 minutes. He was a -6.
Jordan -- -- We dusted him off in the third quarter when we sat Dwight and Reaves. Reaves was missing threes and Dwight wasn’t giving you vertical spacing, so the paint was a mess for the Lakers. The boo’s came out some more in this game when he threw a pass about 15 feet over a teammate’s head. Just a warm body at this point in his career. I’d rather have Dudley. The Stats: He scored 2 points on 1-1 shooting (0-1 from the line) to go with 3 boards, 1 block and 1 turnover in 9 minutes. He was a -14.
Bazemore -- -- Man, what do you have to do to be the last guy on the floor in this one? Poor Baze. In for LeBron with 4:33 left in this one. The Stats: He scored 3 points on 1-1 shooting from three to go with 1 assist, 1 block, 1 turnover and no fouls in 5 minutes. He was a -4.
Vogel -- -- Key Moment: The team’s 18th turnover when the boo’s came out midway through the third quarter. This is an atrocious product right now. He’s a lame duck coach and I’m not sure that helps anyone.
Key Substitution: Down 27, why do we still have LeBron out there? When I was pondering this, he picked up a tech with 2:19 left in the third. I don’t think he wanted to stay out there, either. Still, we started LeBron in the fourth down 30. Why? With 6 minutes left, down 24, still out there. They finally sat him with 4:33 left.
Key Stats: Turnovers: The Lakers had 9 in the first quarter, 7 in the second, 5 in the third, 2 in the fourth. Progress? Lol. The 23 tied a team high. The Lakers also shot 7-34 from three.
Frank Vogel says the Lakers aren’t shooting well from the perimeter, which means teams are clogging the paint against them. He believes a lot of their turnovers stem from trying to force the ball inside because of their lack of shooting.
Bazemore, Ariza and Ellington were unnecessary signings. Vogel has too many mouths to feed and the team is garbage _________________ "Dread it, run from it... destiny arrives all the same."
This team just don't have the young legs to keep up... You can no longer rely on a 37 yrs old Lebron to will you to wins... AD/Nunn injury has been huge. Two young guys who was suppose help balance the roster. Westbrook was just a complete failure. Never seen such a decline of a player.
Thanks DB - not easy to get involved these days so kudos to you for keeping it up.
From champs to chumps, just like that. What's become very difficult is pretty much for...oh...past 30+ games, if not longer, generally speaking the games go like this:
Lakers in 2nd or 3rd get down double digits. If not blown out from thereon (like tonight) Lakers in 3rd or 4th make a push and make it interesting, to which if its a close game at the end they are about less than 50% chance to win it.
So...yea. This team isnt finishing over .500 by the way. _________________ "One thing I admire about Kuzma is his unwavering confidence. He truly has no idea that he’s not as good as he thinks." - Killer_Z
Joined: 03 Oct 2003 Posts: 8288 Location: Santa Monica
Posted: Sun Feb 27, 2022 11:07 pm Post subject:
This team right now seems to have no collective self-esteem or belief. It almost looks like they're shell-shocked.
It reminds me of a situation we've probably been in at least once in our personal lives - we're trying to accomplish something, and we feel desperate and we don't believe we'll succeed, and we seem punch-drunk as a result.
The only way we make the play-in tournament is if LeBron galvanizes this team. Kobe was in a similar situation in 2012-13, and he got us into the playoffs almost singlehandedly.
Right now we deserve to miss the play-in tournament, and if that happens, it will be a big stain on LeBron's legacy.
Joined: 17 Jun 2003 Posts: 6280 Location: Central Coast
Posted: Mon Feb 28, 2022 7:26 am Post subject:
Dark days in Lakerland, that is for sure. Thanks for writing it up and sticking with it, even when it is not fun. _________________ LAKERS 2019-2020: NBA World Champions!
This team needs to have a CP3-type leader that is getting into players who are not performing
Is LBJ that leader?
How will LBJ/WB demand that a great effort is required on every moment they are on the court. As many have stated, the word is out that this Laker team to stay close, they will defeat themselves and hand the game to you.
LBJ/AD were very impactful/influential in putting together this roster and it has proven that they are not very good GMs - just like Magic
Hopefully Vogel will be shortening his bench
Hopefully Vogel will shorten the PT of players such as Ariza
Hopefully Vogel will limit LBJ's PT to between 30-35MPG (since they are already losing with him playing 36 minutes in tonight's game and it wasn't even close
If Ariza is not playing good D, why is he on the court
LBJ and WB combined for 14 TOs that equals 28 points
Lakers were embarrassed, yet Westbrook and LBJ don't look embarrassed or mad - they just looked beaten and defeated
Hopefully Vogel has the FO's approval to play Wenyen Gabriel and DJ Augustine some major run - they couldn't be any more disorganized and ineffective than the players they are now playing
Let's give some major "burn" to players that are hungry and young - Gabriel, Reeves, Johnson, Monk and either LBJ/Melo. We know that they will play with effort and energy.
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