LAKERS -at- WARRIORS - 2/8 - Thoughts and :-)) Ratings

 
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DancingBarry
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PostPosted: Sat Feb 08, 2020 9:10 pm    Post subject: LAKERS -at- WARRIORS - 2/8 - Thoughts and :-)) Ratings

Going Through the Motions... The Lakers took the night off against the Warriors.

I can’t blame the team for playing a bit uninspired. It’s been a mentally fatiguing last couple of weeks.

They are dragging themselves into All Star break with sloppy, tough-to-watch, tough-to-enjoy basketball. The problem with messing around like this is you have your stars in late, battling and taking bumps, falls and awkward landings.

Anthony Davis was noticeably uncomfortable with a couple minutes left in this game. This should be a time where he’s sitting and resting up. I’m sure he’s fine, but they need to do a better job taking care of business.

“We have two more games until the All Star break, which I think everybody will need to just kind of decompress, regather their thoughts and regather their emotions for what we’ve been through in the last couple of weeks,” LeBron said.

“We got to just get there,” Kuzma said.

As bad as the Lakers played at times, they could build a lead without even trying. The game was never really in doubt, and they eventually won 125-120. Better than giving up 142 to Minnesota and losing like the Clippers did tonight.

“It’s kind of the dog days of the NBA season,” Vogel said. “You have to fight monotony.”


LeBron -- -- Oh boy. Not a pretty one. Uninspired first half with a -3 and 3 turnovers and 7 points. He’d have more turnovers than that in the second half. He was content to sit back and find teammates for a while. An occasional attack would result in some FTs. In the second half, he had a stretch where he threw two turnovers on screen-rolls, then shortly later another sloppy pass that led to an And-1 in transition. The two-man game with AD was awful. That bad stretch had Vogel actually sitting him a little earlier than he usually does for Rondo/Kuzma in the third quarter. Late in the game, the offense got stagnant again. We were running clock, but we certainly weren’t working on improving our execution. He’d hit the dagger three with 17 seconds left, but we should have had that happen a quarter early when we went up by 20. He was as big (if not more) a reason for the sluggish team play in this one as anyone. But it’s a road game against a cellar dweller in February. Defensively, he was pretty stationary, as well. As he goes, this team goes. The Stats: He scored 22 points on 7-17 shooting (3-8 from three, 5-6 from the line) to go with 8 boards, 11 assists, 1 steal, 7 turnovers and 2 fouls in 34 minutes. He was +6.

Davis -- -- Good job getting to the line 13 times. Not exciting ball, but if you can manufacture points like he did on a swing through on the perimeter, that’s at least smart ball. The LeBron AD two-man game looked pretty bad. Turnovers on the passes as LeBron’s timing was off and he was just sloppy. Despite that, other guys like KCP and Rondo were able to connect with AD for lobs. I liked seeing AD setup LeBron on the break filling a lane for a layup. He tweaked himself late and they were looking at him on the sideline, but seemed minor. The Stats: He scored 27 points on 9-14 shooting (9-13 from the line) to go with 10 boards, 4 assists, 3 steals, 1 block, 2 turnovers and 2 fouls in 35 minutes. He was a +4.

Green -- -- He sank a sideline three off a kickout from Kuzma and attacked from the corner for a layup in the first half. He’d hit another three later getting a rebound on his own miss, and he’d score a couple of FTs. Quiet 10 points from him. The Stats: He scored 10 points on 3-6 shooting (2-3 from three, 2-2 from the line) to go with 2 boards, 1 assist, 1 turnover and 2 fouls in 29 minutes. He was a +7.

McGee -- -- We actually saw him out there late in this game as we saw Dwight for McGee. I don’t know if this was in a way responding to the last game where we should have done this, but I like that the coaches are at least maybe now open minded to it. McGee scored his points off a BLOB pass under the hoop where he came off a screen and also another bucket on a jumphook. Only one block in this game, a nice one where he destroyed a 3-on-2 break. The Stats: He scored 4 points on 2-4 shooting to go with 5 boards, 1 steal, 1 block, 3 turnover and 4 fouls in 21 minutes. He was a +0.

Bradley -- -- Great first quarter again, hitting three threes. Few things have looked improved in February, but Bradley’s shot certainly has. He’d finish with four threes and 14 points in the first half. That led the team. He’d finish with 21 after going 5-7 from three. “When he makes a couple, we’ve got some plays where we can call his number a little more,” Vogel said. In the second half, we ran a SLOB play where he came off a weakside down screen to take a pass and hit a three. We’ve run this for LeBron, as well. I wouldn’t have minded seeing a few more minutes for him with how he had it going and his aggressiveness. The Stats: He scored 21 points on 7-11 shooting (5-7 from three, 2-2 from the line) to go with 4 boards, 2 assists, 2 steals, 1 turnover and 2 fouls in 30 minutes. He was a +7.

Caldwell-Pope -- -- He had just a brief stint. He got a score off a BLOB play where he hit a baseline jumper. The Lakers had a few scores in this game directly off that baseline inbounds. We cut his minutes short as he has a sore shoulder. “He should be fine,” Vogel said. He gave Daniels the minutes instead. The Stats: He scored 2 points on 1-2 shooting (0-1 from three) to go with 1 assist and 1 foul in 4 minutes. He was a +5.

Kuzma -- -- You can tell he’s trying to reel in the wild shots or attacks. In the first half, he had 5 assists (but 3 turnovers). They made him the trigger man on an ATO to setup Dwight for the lob. He kicked out to Green and Daniels for threes. Good ball movement in that half. He was a bit more aggressive on the scoring in the second half trying to get to the rim. He didn’t take a three. Defensively, he had a nice sequence in the third where he stole a bounce pass and then blocked a shot. Too many turnovers, but good game in the sense that he’s doing more of the little things. We could have used that rebounding again, but he got 3 steals being active that way. The 6 assists and 3 steals, those other non-scoring plays are the kind of stats I’m looking to see more of with more consistency. “That’s the most important thing right now, just trying to play winning basketball,” Kuzma said. The Stats: He scored 12 points on 4-8 shooting (4-4 from the line) to go with 2 boards, 6 assists, 3 steals, 4 turnovers and 2 fouls in 29 minutes. He was a -3.

Caruso -- -- He came in late in the second quarter for 4 minutes and had just 3 in the second half. Not a lot of time. He didn’t hit a couple of threes, but Vogel seemed to have in mind that he wasn’t needed as much in this one. The Stats: He didn’t score on 0-2 shooting from three to go with 3 boards, 1 steal and 1 foul in 7 minutes. He was a -4.

Howard -- -- We actually gave him the ball in the post for some scores in this one. When he’s got an advantage in size, they need to get after that a little more (unlike the opposite direction we took in the last game). Dwight did a good job battling on the offensive glass to draw fouls or get putbacks. We sat him early in the fourth for McGee. Rare we see that. Vogel took a timeout off a Warrior score that had players reaching or standing around. When he did get fouled, you can see how he’s really moved himself far back on the freethrow line. He’s 18 inches back and it didn’t seem to help much. That stats in this game were in just 13 minutes. Good job making things happen. The Stats: He scored 12 points on 5-7 shooting (2-5 from the line) to go with 8 boards (4 offensive), 1 turnover and 3 fouls in 13 minutes. He was a +7.

Rondo -- -- He was left alone most of this game. That resulted in several open threes and thankfully, he knocked down three. Good job in that regard. He also had a nice lob to AD spinning in the post. Other than that, still kind of painful to watch. Where you see issues is when he can’t create any kind of advantage on two-man sequences and the clock winds down or we force something up. Occasionally, he will gain an advantage, but often because they put pressure on him to be a scorer, nothing results from these sequences. There was also an ATO play where the defense sagged off of him and that was instantly busted. Like a lot of guys, too many turnovers tonight with 4. The Stats: He scored 11 points on 4-8 shooting (3-5 from three) to go with 4 boards, 4 assists, 4 turnovers and 1 foul in 21 minutes. He was a +1.

Daniels -- -- We slid him into the rotation to start the second quarter with Rondo and LeBron. KCP’s soreness led to more opportunity for Daniels. He didn’t do a lot with it, but he’s a threat they have to respect and that spaces the floor. He’d sink a three on a kickout and hit a late FT. The Stats: He scored 4 points on 1-3 from three (1-2 from the line) to go with 1 board, 1 turnover and 2 fouls in 17 minutes. He was a -5.

Vogel -- -- Key Moment: Let’s go with the start to the second half. The Lakers went on a quick 7-0 run in 1:13 of action to force a timeout. They’d go up 20 and then seemed to get a little bored. This is where we needed to step on the throats and go for the kill. It didn’t happen.

Key Substitution: I liked that we got Bradley 30 minutes tonight. I even wouldn’t have minded a couple more minutes with how he was going. The team has done a great job lately finding him when he’s got the hot hand. In the fourth, though, I kept wondering when we’d bring him back in and it wasn’t until we had 4 minutes left and were up 9. Kind of chilled the hot hand there.

Key stats: Let’s go with the 24 turnovers. LeBron, Rondo and Kuzma had 21 assists combined but also 15 turnovers.

Coach’s Challenge: He took one midway through the fourth on an And-1 drive against McGee. Successful, basket counted, but saved a freethrow shot.
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Aeneas Hunter
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PostPosted: Sat Feb 08, 2020 9:40 pm    Post subject:

First. I didn't get to watch a lot of this game, but what I saw struck me as the quintessential mid-season grind game. The Warriors had some G leaguers who were thrilled to be playing. We had veterans who just wanted to get the game over with. But we ground out the result.
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deal
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PostPosted: Sat Feb 08, 2020 10:01 pm    Post subject:

Thanks DB!
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PostPosted: Sun Feb 09, 2020 12:58 am    Post subject:

Aeneas Hunter wrote:
First. I didn't get to watch a lot of this game, but what I saw struck me as the quintessential mid-season grind game. The Warriors had some G leaguers who were thrilled to be playing. We had veterans who just wanted to get the game over with. But we ground out the result.


Something like that. Tough game to watch and some very uninspired ball by the Lakers. Making Chriss look like the second coming of Wilt and Bowman playing like Magic sure didn't help.

The ASB can't come soon enough.
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RI Laker
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PostPosted: Sun Feb 09, 2020 3:49 am    Post subject:

Poor overall game (the opponent and time of year was clearly the cause). The
well balanced scoring was great to see. Maybe that is something we can build upon.
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akgolf
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PostPosted: Sun Feb 09, 2020 4:43 am    Post subject:

Thanks DB!
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lakerican
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PostPosted: Sun Feb 09, 2020 4:47 am    Post subject:

At least ABradley continue his good shooting from 3pt. He is up to 35.5%. Looks like he is using our shooting coach.
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danzag
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PostPosted: Sun Feb 09, 2020 5:29 am    Post subject:

Felt like a loss
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wolfpaclaker
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PostPosted: Sun Feb 09, 2020 5:39 am    Post subject:

Every championship and contender the Lakers have had in my time including the 67 win and 65 win teams in 00 and 09 ... they all had these ruts and dog days periods. Picking it up closer to the playoffs. Now you factor the emotional impact of losing Kobe. The game can not mean as much to them as once before. It will take time.

These games included the ones against the Rockets just can’t mean the same at the moment.

Looking forward to post ASB.
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ElginBaylor
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PostPosted: Mon Feb 10, 2020 6:15 am    Post subject:

I'm on board with the extenuating circumstances. Teams like the Lakers are just hanging on until the break, where teams like the Warriors are trying to salvage whatever they can out of a dismal season.

Thanks DB.
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