LAKERS -at- SPURS - 11-26-22 - Thoughts and :-)) Ratings

 
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DancingBarry
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PostPosted: Sat Nov 26, 2022 9:00 pm    Post subject: LAKERS -at- SPURS - 11-26-22 - Thoughts and :-)) Ratings

Shootout at the Alamo... The schedule to open this season has been an odd one for the Lakers -- a challenging first 10, a weird week-long break, and a trio of games against the Spurs (or as Mrs. DB asked, “What is this (bleep)ing baseball?”).

The Spurs are the worst defensive team in the league, and the Lakers without AD aren’t much better. This game showed as much.

While they got LeBron back last night, they sat AD tonight with the calf bruise, which is how it goes apparently.

The Spurs pounced on the Lakers early by getting into transition off Laker miscues. They quickly had 21 points in the first 6 minutes.

The Spurs lost Poeltl in the second quarter to a leg injury, so no interior defense for either team. The Lakers had a 9-0 run late in the second quarter to reel the Spurs back in and lead 70-68 at the half. They gave up 21 points on the break in the half (39 overall).

The Lakers stretched the lead to 16, winning the first few minutes of the fourth behind LeBron bombing threes and scoring at a high clip. The Spurs battled back, cutting that lead in half in the next minute forcing a Laker timeout.

Lonnie Walker gave the Lakers a flurry of buckets to help keep pace with the high scoring in the fourth quarter. The team seemed content with trading baskets and held onto the 143-138 win.


LeBron -- -- He had 16 points on 4-7 shooting from three in the first half. While the three ball was falling from start to finish, he also had a great sequence on the break in that half. He threw what looked like a lob to Russ, who then lobbed back while still in air to LeBron as he got a head of steam, and LBJ hammered the dunk. In the second half, he had a key sequence early in the fourth quarter as we were battling to win those first few minutes. He swished back-to-back threes and then scored a layup over a crowd of defenders as he got downhill. That forced a timeout. We played him a bit at center this game (along with Gabriel at times at PF), so some super small lineups that we kind of paid the price for. It feels like he looks a little less mobile on the defensive end in the past two games. Guys are attacking past him at times and also the help effort that LeBron is good at isn’t quite up to his level. The Stats: He scored 39 points on 11-21 shooting (7-12 from three, 10-10 from the line) to go with 11 boards, 3 assists, 1 steal, 1 block, 4 turnovers and 3 fouls in 35 minutes. He was a -3.

Walker IV -- -- The IV in his name might as well stand for the fourth quarter. Very quiet first three quarters. He had just a couple of shots and makes in the first half. In the fourth quarter shootout at the Alamo, Walker was a key gunslinger. He swished an open three from the corner on a kickout. When LeBron sat, he drained another three right over his man. He attacked off the high screen, double-clutched after losing it briefly in the paint and hit the fade over the defender before going down. Next trip down, he attacked right, elevated and scored the layup. He’d drain a wing three off a swing pass shortly later. Huge scoring punch to pile up the points late in this one and help the Lakers to the win. The Stats: He scored 19 points on 7-10 shooting (3-5 from three, 2-2 from the line) to go with 5 boards, 2 assists, 1 turnover and no fouls in 39 minutes. He was a +3.

Schröder -- -- He had 16 points on 4-7 shooting and 4 assists in the first half. He’d have 21 on 6-8 shooting just a couple minutes into the second half after a three and midrange. He was leading all scorers at this point. The three ball was falling (3-4) and that makes a big difference. Guys will give him space, so he needs to punish them for that. He did that tonight. He’d get into his midrange. He had a nice pull-up at the FT line after putting the defender in jail and then losing him for the easy open 15-footer straight away. He’d get to the line using that speed of his (again, something he’d do with regularity in his first stint with the team). Overall, he’s getting better and better. It’s making a difference. The Stats: He scored 21 points on 6-10 shooting (3-4 from three, 6-6 from the line) to go with 3 boards, 6 assists, 1 turnover and 3 fouls in 31 minutes. He was a +4.

Bryant -- -- He started the game and would match up with Poeltl, but once Poeltl went out for the night, Bryant’s use was limited. We’d default to Gabriel and LeBron at the C spot. No Jones, who is buried deep on the bench now. He struggled a bit with Poeltl, giving up some offensive boards and scores. He did get to some shots, bouncing off his man to swat some drives. Bryant showed that good finishing ability of his own when set up by Walker for a layup and Bron found him cutting baseline for a dunk. LeBron also found him on a drive and dish. Bryant would also get FTs crashing after some Russ dribble penetration. The Stats: He scored 9 points on 3-4 shooting (3-5 from the line) to go with 4 boards, 1 assist, 3 blocks and 2 fouls in 18 minutes. He was a +2.

Brown -- -- He had a team-high +11. One of those stats where you don’t want to put a lot of weight on in a single game. He did give the team some extra length and that is useful. But a pretty quiet night overall. He hit a midrange pull-up and a floater from the wing on a two-man sequence to start the second half. He also got to the line when the Spurs doubled LBJ and he found Brown under the hoop. He’s pretty good at slipping into space when the defense is distracted. The Stats: He scored 6 points on 2-3 shooting (0-1 from three, 2-2 from the line) to go with 2 boards, 3 assists, 1 steal, 1 turnover and 1 foul in 23 minutes. He was a +11.

Westbrook -- -- With 2 minutes left in the third quarter, the ball found him in the dunker spot. He took the pass, missed, got the ball back, up-faked and powered up, getting hit hard on the head. It instantly opened a gash in his forehead. He bounced up, blood already coming out and had words with Collins as LeBron intercepted him. The refs gave Collins a flagrant-2 and Russ a tech. Good work by the medical staff to stop the bleeding there by the time Russ had to shoot FTs to the Spurs fans booing (Really? Dude just got cracked on the head). A little bit of fireworks there. Overall, not a great game from Russ. He had 8 points on 4-10 shooting in the first half. He’d score just 3 in the second half. A lot of compounding errors in this one. Whether it was one of the 6 turnovers or just missing shots, he’d stack mistakes up. Defensively, he got backdoored twice along the baseline. The team was not locked in after dominating the Spurs previously. The Stats: He scored 11 points on 4-12 shooting (0-3 from three, 3-6 from the line) to go with 8 boards, 6 assists, 1 block, 6 turnovers and 3 fouls in 26 minutes. He was a -2.

Reaves -- -- Big third quarter by Reaves. In the first half, he had floater in transition and hit a corner three. He made all four of his attempts in the third quarter and was up to 14 on an efficient 6-6 shooting. He swished a pull-up jumper on iso in the third. Check out the off-ball hand work by Reaves on this shot…refs will let you hand battle sometimes if the defense is trying to clutch and hold. They are trying to keep you from separation, you need to regain that advantage and it happens in a fraction of a second. He’d have another attack, stop, pivot and hit the short jumper. He hit LeBron for a three shortly later. He’d score an And-1 layup in transition. Later, he would attack down the lane, switch hands and score a layup. Defensively, he drew a couple offensive fouls. One a push off on a drive, another a foul fighting over the top of a screen. Not too many were playing D, so I had to find some highlights from someone there. He did get overpowered quite a few times for scores and also got backdoored once. The Stats: He scored 16 points on 6-7 shooting (1-2 from three, 3-3 from the line) to go with 2 boards, 2 assists, 1 steal, 2 turnovers and 3 fouls in 31 minutes. He was a +3.

Gabriel -- -- The three-point play action tonight from Wenyen. He’d knock down two from behind the arc. But he also had multiple And-1 scores. He had one on a layup trailing the break in the first half. He had back-to-back ones with a couple minutes left in the fourth. The first of those was when they doubled LeBron, Wenyen sealed his man and scored the And-1. The next time down was an off-ball cut where he took the bounce pass and muscled in another And-1 layup. Defensively, some size issues as guys could score over him, but he did get a couple good swats in. The Stats: He scored 15 points on 5-8 shooting (2-4 from three, 3-3 from the line) to go with 3 boards, 1 assist, 1 steal, 2 blocks, 2 turnovers and 3 fouls in 22 minutes. He was a +1.

Nunn -- -- A rare dunk from Nunn on the breaking coming from the corner to take the pass from Russ and jam. He’d make a three and get another layup when Russ spotted him in space under the hoop. He’s at least been consistently scratching out some points off the bench and not chucking at quite the rate he was earlier in the season. The Stats: He scored 7 points on 3-6 shooting (1-2 from three) to go with 1 board, 1 assist and 2 fouls in 15 minutes. He was a +6.

Ham -- -- Key Moment: The first 4 minutes of the fourth, Bron was bombing threes and we got out on the break for some scores and built a 15-point lead. We didn’t quite take control of the game there, because the Spurs would cut that lead in half in the next minute. But that essentially gave us enough separation to trade baskets for the rest of the quarter.

Key Substitution: A lot of small ball in this one with Gabriel and LeBron at center. With AD out and Jones not playing, it seems like the rotation is pretty set right now. Hard to say what Bryant’s role is. Our defense sans AD is not stopping anyone. The smaller lineups should be more switchy and really need to make an effort on the glass. This one was very reminiscent of last season where we’d see some LeBron at C, he’d have a huge scoring game and we’d have to outgun teams to win.

Key Stats: The Lakers made 17-33 from three and 32-37 from the line. Their 143 came on 81 shots. Spurs made 18-37 from three and had 17 offensive boards, while the Lakers had just 3.
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Koalita
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PostPosted: Sat Nov 26, 2022 9:03 pm    Post subject:

Thanks DB! You are the best!
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PostPosted: Sat Nov 26, 2022 9:06 pm    Post subject:

Thanks, DB!

When LBJ is on, this team is a tease.
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PostPosted: Sat Nov 26, 2022 9:24 pm    Post subject:

Winning 5 of the last 6; what is this feeling, is it.... hope?
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fakethefunk
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PostPosted: Sat Nov 26, 2022 10:22 pm    Post subject:

Great write up! Winning the games we are “supposed to win” is key. Its not easy to beat ANY team three times in a row. We are getting close to .500
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A Mad Chinaman
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PostPosted: Sat Nov 26, 2022 10:59 pm    Post subject:

Good Writeup

A game they are suppose to win?
A game they are suppose to win!!

Good scrimmage with a cunning HC looking to punch holes in any weaknesses

Hopefully this team will identify how they can impose their will on teams with their quickness and stranglehold D

As the Kobe Bryant ESPN series has highlighted, height doesn’t guaranteed good or bad defense
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sonic the laker
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PostPosted: Sat Nov 26, 2022 11:08 pm    Post subject:

Thanks, DB!

And, one of your last points hit the nail on the head, regarding one of the things about this game that drove me buggy. During the first half, when each teams bigs were out there, our half court defense looked solid. The Spurs were scoring mostly in the fast break, off of turnover or pushing after rebounding the ball. They were making a concentrated effort to not play against our set defense. As LeBron said in his interview, they have to do a better job of getting back on defense in transition, locating players, and stopping the ball handler from getting easy dives to the rim. None of that was happening.

Bryant was playing reasonably well, but I understand why he got limited play...to a degree. The Spurs were forced to play small,, after injuries to Poetl and Collison. Hamm wanted to match, with a small ball lineup. However, I would have liked to see if we could have taken advantage of their lack of size, by having Bryant in the post.

But, something I noticed during the game, during the second half, was the way Pop made adjustments to the Spurs offense. Hamm likes to play drop coverage. So, the Spurs began putting whoever the center was in pnr's and making a concerted effort to get into that midrange spot, and scoring from there. The Spurs were eating us up with this. But, Hamm never made the adjustment to go from a drop coverage defense, to a switching defense, until mid 4th quarter. That was WAY too slow of a realization/adjustment.

Hamm's a rookie head coach, so I'm anticipating the same ups and downs you'd get from a rookie player. Just hope he learns from this, and becomes more adaptable. I hope he doesn't become one of those coaches that becomes overly focused on making "their way" work , despite evidence to the contrary. Different situations call for different solutions. Doing the same ineffective thing, again and again, just "harder", makes no sense.

Also, personally, I would love to see Christie get some minutes. If not with the parent team, at least slide him over to the G -League, for meaningful minutes. Lakers!
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PostPosted: Sun Nov 27, 2022 12:01 am    Post subject:

Thanks DB! I always get something from the write up that I missed in the game. Appreciate you!
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PostPosted: Sun Nov 27, 2022 1:06 am    Post subject:

sonic the laker wrote:
But, something I noticed during the game, during the second half, was the way Pop made adjustments to the Spurs offense. Hamm likes to play drop coverage. So, the Spurs began putting whoever the center was in pnr's and making a concerted effort to get into that midrange spot, and scoring from there. The Spurs were eating us up with this. But, Hamm never made the adjustment to go from a drop coverage defense, to a switching defense, until mid 4th quarter. That was WAY too slow of a realization/adjustment.
IMHO - It wasn't the defensive schemes that were hurting the Lakers' D.

When would you have played Christie during last night's game

Enjoy your observations
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governator
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PostPosted: Sun Nov 27, 2022 6:53 am    Post subject:

Felt like we were the same level as this scrubs last night, even with Bron and Westbrook healthy, defense was so porous, no bueno
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sonic the laker
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PostPosted: Sun Nov 27, 2022 8:08 am    Post subject:

A Mad Chinaman wrote:
sonic the laker wrote:
But, something I noticed during the game, during the second half, was the way Pop made adjustments to the Spurs offense. Hamm likes to play drop coverage. So, the Spurs began putting whoever the center was in pnr's and making a concerted effort to get into that midrange spot, and scoring from there. The Spurs were eating us up with this. But, Hamm never made the adjustment to go from a drop coverage defense, to a switching defense, until mid 4th quarter. That was WAY too slow of a realization/adjustment.
IMHO - It wasn't the defensive schemes that were hurting the Lakers' D.

When would you have played Christie during last night's game

Enjoy your observations


Much appreciated. Self-admittedly, I'm play the part of armchair coach/GM, like the rest of us on this board, lol.

As for Christie, personally, I would play him over Nunn, or Beverly. At this point in his career, Bev needs to take on a role akin to Jared Dudley. His defense is average, and his offense is just bad. And, Christie was playing good basketball, until he got sidelined by health & safety protocols.

I was really high on Nunn, and wanted to be patient with him. Coming back from a season ending injury, it takes time to get into a rhythm. But, the more I see him play, I just don't see him fitting in with this squad. Especially with the surprise breakout play of Reaves (last season to this one), and Walker.

Imo, our starters should be Schroder, Walker, Brown Jr., LeBron, AD. The bench should be Russ, Reaves, Christie, Wenyen, Bryant. Those lineups have a good combination of ball handling, shooting, and size, imo.
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PostPosted: Sun Nov 27, 2022 11:45 am    Post subject:

Quote:
Westbrook; With 2 minutes left in the third quarter, the ball found him in the dunker spot. He took the pass, missed, got the ball back, up-faked and powered up, getting hit hard on the head. It instantly opened a gash in his forehead. He bounced up, blood already coming out and had words with Collins as LeBron intercepted him


Westbrook has found his niche.

I thought the refs giving Collins a flagrant-2 was the right move. If they'd have given him a flagrant 1 and allowed him to continue to play there may have been some retaliatory play. As an aside, I also thought it was also excessive. Without the blood flow, it may have been a flagrant 1.
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PostPosted: Sun Nov 27, 2022 12:43 pm    Post subject:

Thanks DB!
But... YIKES, what has happened to our defense????
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PostPosted: Sun Nov 27, 2022 3:38 pm    Post subject:

Thanks, DB!

Unfortunately @defense was nowhere to be found, but I'll take the W!
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