Game Debrief: What Went Right And What Went Wrong?

Strange team this year, we’re clearly very good, but maybe not elite? However our offense could be elite, but our defense definitely isn’t. At the same time we’ve been very good in crunch time and it’s going to be hard to stop our starting unit putting big numbers on you.

But OKC may be the best defense of all time. So I don’t know what to make of this season.

 

AR and Luka combine for 73 and Lakers move to 15-4 in beating DAL 129-119. Lakers as a team shot 59% for the game.

Hillbilly Mamba was 12 for 15 overall and 6 for 8 from long. 38/8/3; #77 was 35/5/11. Those two guys made 19 of 20 FTs.

I thought AR was fantastic tonight. I think it was Flagg's elbow that knocked AR down in the paint. AR got up, dazed, his jaw took the shot. If you look at the replay really closely you see a little ring of stars floating above AR's head for around the next 45 seconds. He was temporarily out of it. Next thing: he hits a 3.

Rui started off 1-5 from the field then hit 3s from the corner. His midrange wasn't what it usually is, but DAL is really long defending down low. AD had a couple of spectacular blocks, but looked very rusty on offense.

There were stretches in which we played good defense. Like maybe 4 minutes total.

With 3:33 left in the game we're up 9, Bron gets fouled by Cooper Flagg and misses both FTs. I thought this might lead to a DAL run: PJ tips in a shot: Lakers lead down to 7...but Luka hits Rui for a 13 foot pullup: back to 9: okay! Max Christie (miss this guy) misses a 3, gets his own rebound, Nembhard misses a floater I thought was going in and he gets his own board, then he hits a 20 footer: back to 7, but now there's only 2:20 left. Eating the clock, Luka hits Bron for a 3 and I think we all knew it was over for sure then. The reason I keep suspecting the other team is going to cut it to w/in 2 late is because...that's what this Lakers team has done over and over. Push it to 20, 25. But no.

After the Lakers won a challenge that Luka called for with 70 secs left in the game, Kidd put his scrubs in, but JJ had his starters on the floor, up 12. Why?

svtzr is right: it's a weird team: great record, really good offense, but what we saw in that game against OKC should still haunt every Lakers fan.

I record the games then begin watching them when the actual game-game is almost over, sometimes long over. Tonight I didn't start watching until 11PM, and Amazon Prime really blows when you want to fast-forward through commercials and halftime. Man, I'm totally spoiled by the DVR, friends. I admit it.

 

Amazon cuts it too close with the double headers. 2nd time we missed the start of the Lakers game and this time the first game wasn't even OT like the first. But tonight the Bucks down 9 with 20 seconds left and call a time out .... WTF! Picture quality is superb though and they have a ton of camera angles.

 

You're right LT it does look effing good. The PBP guy: what a voice.

 

the defense has MILES to go before i can believe we can hang with the top teams. denver and okc in particular. we just don't contain penetration AT ALL.

anyway, the game was indeed entertaining. reaves was absolutely incredible. luka was just his normal self, which is incredible. lebron was pretty bad, and rui came to life just in time to help salt the game away with some timely shots.

hayes had a bit of an off game; think some of the physicality took him out of his zone a bit. that dunk he had was a) awesome and b) clearly out of frustration with how the game was being played/officiated. ayton was really good, though, and he was doing a good job challenging shots in particular, imo.

gabe did gabe stuff, which is solid and unspectacular. laravia was sort of invisible, and when he wasn't, he probably wanted to be.

his minutes were brutal. he looked 1000 years old.


anyway, you can't need 40 minutes of luka to beat the kyrie-less, near last place mavs at home. that's bad. not a strong game from us as a team, just a couple really great individual performances and an uncharacteristically good long range shooting night.

on the other side, dlo got dnp-cd'd in favor of their young undrafted guards, so that's going great. really like aspect of both nembhard (just a pure floor general, cp3-esque in terms of playing nearly mistake-free) and williams (he can create shots, particularly against second line players), but both should be backups. not having exum has probably hurt the mavs more than people realize, tbh.

AD actually moved fairly well after the layoff, though i still think he needs to drop some lbs. we played him like teams played him when he was with us--for the same reason: we didn't believe they could shoot it well enough to punish the early doubles. we almost got burned, but we kept him quiet.

dallas actually had some nice high/how action and cuts to help manufacture paint looks. i was a bit surprised, tbh, as kidd's offenses have often been pretty unimaginative. but these were clearly coaching calls, imo, and they helped a team with much shot creation get some good looks.

i still think flagg looks awesome, and the numbers aren't doing him justice. his shot will come around, i have no doubt. and he's just really athletic, large, and smart. i've seen a lot of chirping about knueppel or edgecombe being better than him, but i really don't think that's how this shakes out in the end. in fact, the guy i've seen who could maybe end up being a challenger is coward, but even that would surprise me quite a bit. flagg's going to be a star.

 

We are elite offensively, but very mid defensively. This won’t cut it against either OKC or Denver and an infusement of at least two defenders who can also shoot a bit is needed for us to avoid being waxed by either in a series.
We are a good regular season team as is, but that’s not enough.

 

hey, i'll take the progress! okc will have to lose a player or two this offseason, and i think it will matter.