Game Debrief: What Went Right And What Went Wrong?

All the missed wide open shots and blown layups heading down the stretch in the 4th were hard to watch. Ouch!

 

Unplayable Gobert 27 points and 24 rebounds
Are you f***ing kidding me

 

Good? Get to try to think about retooling quicker. Get to see who gets eliminated, the free agents, the players who don’t want to be with their existing teams. Maybe some legitimate veterans take pay cuts to join Luka this summer.

 

What went wrong? JJ effin Dantoni

 

We just need pieces that fit better - that’s really it IMO.

I think JJ got too cute the last two games and made some bad decisions. Never subbing Hayes was a mistake tonight (obviously).

Even if we gutted it out tonight, it was pretty clear our depth and Luka’s defense would sink us eventually.

 

Team just looked deeply flawed as we thought they would after the Luka trade. Crazy to play Kleber instead of Hayes when Gobert looked like the French Shaq. I'm sure Mark Williams is laughing somewhere. To lose to a team who shot worse at 3's than the 2018 Rockets...

Austin really looking like the white D'Lo out there. The bench was also useless scoring 4 points.

Anyways, its a fun season and we'll come back stronger!

 

Williams is but hes stuck in cha and they still looking to trade him...

 

Got to get a better roster to fit Luka's style. It starts with a rim running 5. The bench was atrocious for the most part. The trade for Luka was for next year and beyond. Just getting started.

 

Won't be to us.

 

Painful first round series, all-in-all. MIN's style perfectly exposed all our weaknesses, which I expect to be addressed in the off-season.

JJ's choice to play Maxi instead of Hayes just seems...dubious at best. But that's not why we lost. I thought MIN's D was really great. I thought our Big 3 (Lebron/Luka/AR) were subpar for this series, but a lot was MIN's D. There were times tonight when a T-Wolf missed a shot, 3 Lakers crashed the boards, but the Big Kid got the rebound, easily. The Big Kid (Rudy) vs. 3 smaller kids (pick any 3 Lakers). It was effing embarrassing and glaring.

Excruciating 1st round bow-out, 4-1.

I really do expect us to be much better next year. Which feels like, right now, forever.

Thanks for the camaraderie this year, fellow Lakersball friends!

I'll stick around and comment here and there on the rest of the playoffs and the Finals. (Please! Someone knock off the damned C-Bags!)

Let's hope Luka doesn't show up for camp at 295 lbs.

 

Luka later this week

 

Jeezus “these” alone all summer from his naysayers and detractors will probably / SHOULD guarantee he never does again. If he truly doesn’t ever want to get blindsided again like what happened to him this year now that he IS on the premier team in the world. Listen to LeBron, really understand why the Shaq / Kobe world beating combo blew up years and rings prematurely and if he doesn’t already own it get The Mamba Mentality delivered in 10 minutes from Amazon.

 

Such a deflating loss some of you may know I’m a Cowboys fan a few years ago Packers came into AT&T Stadium in the first round of the playoffs. Despite being the favorite the Cowboys got destroyed by a hungrier and much younger team. Feels like that is what just happened to the Lakers we got throughly outplayed this entire series despite being the heavy favorite to start the series by a younger, more athletic team and they imposed their will on us throughout this series. The Lakers never had any answers. It’s going to be a long offseason.

 

I'm gutted.

I really felt we were the best team heading to this series. I was clearly wrong.

We were vastly outplayed by Minnesota. They scored more in every quarter combined throughout the series. And it felt like it, we were always running against, always coming back. We were never in control of the series.

Now, there's two main factors to it:
a) Roster limitations
b) JJ got outcoached

Which one weighted the most? I don't know. a) is glaring. We have no center and we're physically outmatched by them. But I don't think anyone trades our roster for theirs, so it's probably more on JJ being unable to extract the best version of this group.
I think next season will bring answers to this, as I imagine we will have a roster built to JJ's philosophy and Luka as the centerpiece. A lot of pressure on JJ next season

 

We need a center that will be a lob threat on offense and provide rim protection and rebounding on defense. No idea who that will realistically be, but the trade package will probably again be DK + 1st round pick and if we have to add someone else in, it'll have to either be Rui (not ideal) or Kleber; since both are expiring contracts. Also i'm not entirely sure what the tax implications are and how it'll affect the roster construction.

After that move, I don't see us being able to do anything else besides sign minimum contracts. Maybe Lebron can take a small pay cut so we can fully utilize the MLE?

I'd like to see us use our 2nd round pick on a young project center. Also, i'm ready to move on from Jaxson Hayes.

Everything else hinges on growing from this embarrassing experience. AR's game was exposed during these playoffs and I hope he gets stronger and better on the defensive end. Luka needs to work on conditioning, JJ needs to not take everything personal, Lebron is Lebron (I just hope we are able to keep him as fresh and healthy as possible) and our role players; specifically DFS (if he comes back), Gabe, and Vando need to stay in the gym all summer and work on their 3pt shooting.

 

This thing was over before we boarded the plane heading back to LA, JJ knew it and it's why he went with the desperate hail Mary of playing the 5 the full 24 in Game 4.

Confirmation was in the first 4 minutes of the game. We had to come out and blitz them to a 25-5 opening start to have a chance. I don't think this roster at this point in the playoffs is capable of that against these Timberwolves.


Hats off to ANT. He's got a list and he's taking out all the top tier guys. Steph and Dray next?